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Slavery is a term all our young people think is something of the past, something that happened before their time. But what too few people realize is the slave trade is still very real and in many capacities. We have hear horror stories about the human trafficking into the sex trade, but the human trafficking into the domestic trade is also very much alive and very much ignored. In Kim Purcell's Trafficked, she fights to stop the ignorance regarding a veritable slave trade that imprisons so many of the world's young people.
Hannah is from Moldova, but the family looking for a nanny wants a Russian girl, so she must watch her dialect if she is to make this work. Her friends and family warn her about trusting anyone willing to take her to the US for a job that seems to good to be true, but Hannah won't listen. She and her grandmother are barely surviving as it is, and she won't sit idle while her grandmother's blindness ruins her life for lack of money for a simple cataracts operation. So Hannah travels under a fake name and fake visa to the States, but she is very wary of her surroundings. She has heard the stories of girls shoved into brothels and sold as sex slaves and has no intention of becoming one of them. When she arrives at a home with children to take care of, she breathes a sigh of relief that she has not become another statistic.
But instantly, something feels off to Hannah. Lillian, the mother, demands to keep Hannah's papers and return plane ticket. Hannah loses the ticket but manages to hang onto her visa and passport. Then, she warns Hannah to stay away from her husband. Hannah finds this disconcerting, but the promise of $400 a week is too much to pass up over a bad feeling. She quickly settles into the absurdly long days raising this woman's children, cleaning up after the family, and even cooking all their meals, but she can't get over the fact that she is clearly a "tool" to the family, not a human being. Forced to stay in the garage instead of a bedroom and given only a few clothes, she is basically at their mercy for anything she needs. When they don't pay her for weeks and weeks, she finally asks about her wages only to find she has to "work off her debt" of the ticket and the agent to get her here. Hannah quickly begins to understand that while this might not be a brothel, she is still a slave to this family. But with no place to go for help and people who threaten to hurt your family if you leave, is there anyway to escape that slavery?
When I first saw this book, I have to say I only scanned the blurb and assumed it was the sex trade, not the domestic trade, that Hannah had been duped into. While the domestic trade seems less harmful that the sex trade, it shouldn't be discounted as less terrifying and dehumanizing, because it is still slavery at its very core. I was also very happy to see Hannah was wary of the arrangement and on high alert for anything suspicious. I often wondered how these girls, at this point in time, didn't know about human trafficking and remain alert. It was good to see a girl who was indeed aware but whose obligation and love for her family led her to take the risk anyway. I often wonder if our students (or us, for that matter) understand the desperation that a person can reach where they would knowingly put themselves in a potentially life threatening situation in order to save their loved ones. I think Purcell did a great job of illustrating that devotion in Hannah.
My one confusion with this story was the connection of the host family to Hannah's dead parents and missing uncle. I think this story line was only dealt with superficially and detracted from the primary focus of the novel- a young girl can be held as a slave in modern day Los Angeles. With all these ties of the father to her past life, it makes this story more narrow rather than casting the terrifying large net of having this be any girl and any family. And since it wasn't properly explained, developed, and concluded, it was only a distraction in my personal opinion. I would rather have the message be out there that this can happen to any girl from any place, not just a specific girl whose mother rejected some guy who had an issue with rejection.
So I would keep this as a book for students who are old enough and mature enough to have very candid discussions about what the human trafficking situation really is. If you can't read this book with a student and openly discuss the horrifying aspects of rape and brothels and forced prostitution, or you think the student isn't mature enough to handle this accurate part of humanity, pick another book. But this is an important thing for our students to know about. Slavery isn't over. It is alive and well and can be right in our backyards. Trying to ignore it doesn't mean it goes away, it just makes us ignorant and guilty of not doing something about it.
Thunderstorms can either terrify you or fascinate you. But what if they were drawn to you? What if you were basically a conductor for the storms, and the threat of lightning and what you could do with it was so terrible, you moved to Los Angeles, a place where lightning and thunder rarely come? In Jennifer Bosworth's Struck, we watch a young girl who runs from the very energy that runs through her veins.
Mia and her mother and brother, Parker, survived the earthquake that all but destroyed Los Angeles, but they haven't done so unscathed. Their mother teeters on the edge of full blown mental illness, Parker is struggling to find his path and Mia is struggling to keep her family fed and alive. When the school is finally reopened, they struggle with the idea of leaving their mom home all day, but one full, square meal is more than just slightly tempting. At the school, though, Mia encounters two groups of people who want to get their hands on her.
The Followers are devoted to Prophet- the man who claims to have seen the end of the world and claims to be able to save those who devote themselves to him. The Seekers are people with the Spark (ability to harness and use energy like Mia) who devote their lives to stopping Prophet from ending the world. Mia doesn't want anything to do with either side, but a mysterious boy named Jeremy makes her reconsider everything she thought she knew. Now, with Parker going with the Seekers and her mother obsessed with the Prophet, Mia has to figure something out to save her family, especially with the storm of a lifetime heading straight for her.
I have to say this was a strange and sometimes confusing story, but I can't say I didn't like it. In fact, I really did like it, but it took me right to the end with some big questions and confusions. The clash between the cult-like Followers and the avenger-like Seekers was an interesting one, but you don't get to really know the true story behind either. Well, that's not entirely true. You get more about the Followers, but the Seekers are still left a strange little mystery. There was enough of their back story to at least help you to understand what was happening, but it still left me scratching my head at times. I also wanted to know more about the Spark. What caused this? How many people have it? What are the side-effects? There were quite a few unanswered questions by the end of the story.
Still, it was very interesting. I loved the idea of the Spark and the people who can harness and attract energy like the lightning. Mia was clearly unhappy with her power, but seeing her meet others like herself was fascinating. Unfortunately, you didn't get enough time to see that interaction before everything spun out of control again. I wonder if Bosworth plans on continuing this story. It ends with a good deal of finality, but there could be room to continue if she wanted to. This is a great story for the typical young adult sector, late middle school through high school students. There is a hint of the supernatural, and a good deal of creepy cults and depressing disaster, but Mia is a character you want to learn more about. So consider continuing, Bosworth! I want to see more of Mia and Jeremy!
Math? Fun? You have got to be kidding, right? Well, for Farrah Higgens, in A Girl Named Digit, by Annabelle Monaghan, math is more than just something she is good at. It is almost a compulsion. So much so that her nickname is Digit. But math gets Digit more than she bargained for when she cracks a terrorist code embedded in a teen romance television program.
Digit is the girl Farrah has worked very hard to hide. Her parents even made the school promise to seal her SAT and placement scores in order to protect her from unwanted attention about her scores (which got her into MIT for the fall semester). Farrah works very hard to hide Digit, but when she notices a series of numbers flashing briefly on the screen of a silly teen drama one night, she can't help but notice them. Over the next couple of episodes, Digit realizes there is more to the numbers and cracks a code that leads her to the discovery of an event at JFK. Unfortunately, she doesn't know what the code means until she sees the news where a plane was destroyed and people were killed by a suicide bomber at JFK. Terrified, Digit and her faithful father go to the FBI to report her findings, at which point they are essentially laughed out of the office. But Digit doesn't give up.
She goes to the show's studio to get more information about the code, but she is immediately followed. Being the smart girl she is, she manages to get herself arrested and her attacker recorded by security cameras in order to be taken to the FBI safely. Finally, with the face of her attacker, the FBI realizes her code breaking is legitimate and that Digit is now being hunted by the same eco-terrorists who blew up the luxury jet at JFK. In order to protect Digit, the FBI lets the media think she is kidnapped and puts her in hiding with a particularly young and handsome FBI prodigy named John. When John and Digit crack another code, they can't help but track it down, but it means they will be running for their lives. But when you can't help but crack the codes, what can you do when they are right in front of you?
This was a really cute story for anyone who likes any books from Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls, Heist Society) or the like. It is a cute, girly middle reader adventure that sucks you in and keeps you reading. Digit is an interesting character because she is absolutely brilliant and still embarrassed by it. We all know what it is like for kids to stand out for being smart and have seen kids "hide" their smarts, so this story would be a great way to bring that out into the open. Why are they ashamed of being smart? Why would anyone hide the fact that they were a mathematical genius? I think you could find some really interesting conversations popping up within this realm. And the coolest thing is that Digit ends up foiling a terrorist plot with her smarts! Not to mention, I love the idea that John finds her intelligence one of her best features. Gotta love a boy who likes a girl for her brains!
I would say this is an excellent book for the pre-teen to teenage "girly girls" who like to read about boys and romance, but it still has a smart, strong young woman as the lead character. It is a fun, fast read so a struggling reader would be able to finish it fairly quickly and have success with the accessible reading level. The terrorist plot is particularly relevant for the world we live in today, making this story more than just your average "boy meets girl" story. All I can say is I hope we see more of Digit!
