This is the true story of a remarkable boy, the committed adults who helped him, and of the students around the world who rallied to his cause.
Iqbal Masih was a modern slave in Pakistan who wove carpets twelve hours a day, six days a week. Sometimes he was chained to his loom. Sometimes he was beaten.
Once free he became a brave and passionate speaker who helped free other children from slavery.
IQBAL MASIH AND THE CRUSADERS AGAINST CHILD SLAVERY Is the proud winner of the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for nonfiction.
In 1994, a small band of Chinese illegal aliens kidnapped two other aliens, held them for ten days, beat them, and then released them when their families back in China paid large ransoms.
Now a young man is on trial for the crime. Did he do it?
"Please say it's the flu," a teenager begs his girlfriend. It's not. She's pregnant. For this book I talked with many teenagers and health providers about teenage pregnancy.
Whether the choice is to keep their babies, place them for adoption, or have an abortion, their decisions may be the most important they ever have to make.
From School Library Journal:
Grade 6 Up-- Kuklin interviewed teens and their families from many racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as medical and counseling personnel of organizations that assist those facing unplanned pregnancies. From these interviews and her observations of a Planned Parenthood unit, an adoption agency, a facility that performs abortions, and a hospital clinic, she presents in a clear and detailed style the pros and cons of options available to pregnant teens and their consequences. Some descriptions of procedures are graphic; accounts of the difficulties of those who kept their children and of those who opted for adoption also pull no punches. A particularly ugly episode relates the abuse and ostracism suffered by a teen who gave up her child. Kuklin is frank about her sympathies for the Planned Parenthood approach. Her experiences with pro-life groups are chronicled with negative connotations. She touches on a currently volatile issue about which she is uneasy--parental notification in teen abortions. Solid information, soberly presented, without moralization or strident activism. --Libby K. White, Schenectady County Public Library, NY
From Kirkus:
The author-photographer of Fighting Back: What Some People Are Doing About AIDS (1989) takes a similar investigative approach in interviewing young women and men of varied socioeconomic groups, affiliated with a wide spectrum of agencies. The emerging picture is both optimistic and discouraging, but a repetitive pattern stands out: immaturity, of the pregnant teens and often of their parents as well (for instance, a woman who refers to her grandchild as her son). Time and again, the baby changes a couple's relationship; almost always, the attitude of the young mother's mother is pivotal to whether the girl will choose to abort, to keep the baby, or to put it up for adoption. Matter-of-factly, Kuklin spells out the daily routines of these young mothers. The message isn't lost: this is no picnic.
Go backstage with dancers from the world-renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as they learn and perform a new ballet. Drawing on hours of conversation and photography, you will have a private look at the dancers' goals, disappointments, and triumphs; the endless hard work; and the tension and magic of opening night.
