The Little Princes by Conner Grennan

The Little Prince: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Boys of Nepal by Conner Grennan

Connor Grennan never realized how the three months he would spend at an children’s home in Nepal would change the direction of his entire life.  He just thought it looked like a way to justify traveling around the world for a year between jobs.  Little did he know that he would fall in love with the eighteen children at the Little Princes Children’s Home, and return a year later with the goal of reuniting them with their families in the faraway province of Humla.  His story is heartfelt, often humorous and sometimes tragic.  Because he kept journals during his entire time in Nepal, Grennan is able to recapture the children’s playful personalities in addition to their ability to survive basically be  stolen from their parents by a child trafficker.

I really enjoyed this book, although it could have been about a third shorter.  I recommend to readers who liked Sold, A Long Way Gone, and modern stories about families making their way in war torn countries.

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

It is my guess that every reader of this book will have a strong emotional reaction to it.  This award-winning book made me so angry and sad, that I almost abandoned it a number of times.  It is the true story of a childhood written by journalist Jeannette Walls.  She and her two sisters and brother were raised by unique parents who Walls portrays realistically, but at the same time sympathetically.  Her father was an eccentric, brilliant, and alcoholic man, who couldn’t hold down a job, but whose charisma was so strong his children and wife were always his defenders.   In contrast, Wall’s mother was an artistic, free-spirit  who viewed the responsibility of a family as an inconvenience she refused to allow to interrupt her life.  When the children were very young, the family lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling through the Southwest, usually living in the poor section of town when they settled for brief periods of time.  Eventually, they were forced to moved to the small coal town Rex Walls has left as soon as he was grown, living in a ramshackle structure that could hardly be called a house.  The four children had no indoor plumbing, no food most of the time, and little clothing, despite the freezing winters.  Even though the kids lived through poverty, hunger, and constant jokes and bullying from the other students at school, Walls never judges her parents, telling her story in a straight-forward, non-judgmental manner.  In fact, it is clear that all the children continue to love their parents, in spite of the neglectful, even abusive in my opinion, way they were raised.

For me this book was so difficult because my family has always viewed children as treasures, to be cherished and given as many enriching and positive experiences as we can afford.  To see children so completely neglected was hard for me to read, and impossible for me to comprehend.

I recommend this title to students who want to read about how strong and forgiving the human spirit can be.  It is the perfect choice for readers who loved  A Child Called It or  White Oleander.

Here is a short video interview with Walls you can look at when you’re not at school.