Human trafficking (which includes both sex and labor trafficking) is modern-day slavery, and it's estimated that over a million people are trafficked into slavery each year-but it's hard to know for sure how many people are trafficked because once they enter slavery, they pretty much disappear. ended with the Emancipation Proclamation (you know, the thing Prez Lincoln wrote), you've got another thing coming. What is Sold About and Why Should I Care? Which is kind of McCormick's purpose in the first place. And prepare to be so outraged at Lakshmi's story that you close the book with the urge to do something. So prepare yourself for a heartbreakingly believable tale of naiveté, betrayal, loss of innocence, and hope. In fact, Sold (which was published in 2006) is so compelling and well written that it was a National Book Award Finalist, it won the Quill Award, and it was named an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults, all in 2007. She knows how to find just the write words, time and again.

She traveled to Nepal and India, she explored the red-light districts, she talked to human trafficking survivors-theworks. How could something so awful be written so beautifully? Probably because McCormick did a ton of research to write with authenticity. It's a really intense journey for her… and for us.Īs if the ferocity of Lakshmi's hope wasn't spectacular enough in its own right, the entire novel is written as a series of vignettes, some of which are pure poetry. Yet the friendships that develop and the kindnesses she experiences keep Lakshmi tethered to her hope of freedom. When Lakshmi journeys from her home in Nepal to a brothel in India and her new reality sets in, she sinks into despair. For the family to survive, her stepfather tells Lakshmi that she is going to the city to work as a maid-in actuality, though, he has sold her into prostitution.

In Sold, Lakshmi has a hard life on a mountaintop in Nepal-her family's rice paddy is at the mercy of the weather, and her stepfather gambles away what little money they have. A young adult novel about sex trafficking in India and Nepal? And one that doesn't completely depress us or misrepresent the reality of modern day slavery?

Sold mccormick