Listen to Us: The World's Working Children - Hardcover

Springer, Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0888992912 ISBN 13: 9780888992918

Publisher: Groundwood Books, 1997

Synopsis

An introduction to the complex issues associated with child labor relates its worldwide history and current nature, explaining government responses and presenting the words of the children themselves

About this title

About the Author

JANE SPRINGER has spent most of the past eleven years living and working in the developing world with development organizations such as Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO) and UNICEF in Mozambique, India and Nepal. She has worked as an editor, journalist, translator and publishing consultant for the Mozambique National Institute for the Development of Education, the Mozambique News Agency, Africa Information Afrique (Zimbabwe) and Toronto's Cross Cultural Communication Centre. She lives with her family in Toronto.

Reviews

Grade 7 Up?A comprehensive study of child labor, backed with statistics on wealth, population, and type. Forms of exploitation in many countries are described, from the young carpet weavers of Nepal, to the training of boys as soldiers in Mozambique, to migrant workers, and even to the employment of teenagers for low wages in our consumer society. Individual stories of oppression and of protest lighten the emphasis on economic facts, legal rights, and goals for effecting change. The author has had years of experience working with UNICEF, which has provided many of the photographs. A well-designed cover and pages with photographs of children from many lands draw the eye to this large-sized book with generous margins and an attractive layout. The problem of child labor has been underreported in juvenile publications, and Springer's well-researched book provides reliable and up-to-date information to spark discussion and even action.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7^-12. More comprehensive than Parker and Engfer's Stolen Dreams , this stirring photo-essay looks at the hazardous work children do in developing and industrialized countries, in agriculture, industry, the home, the military, on the street, and in sex work. Springer draws on her extensive experience abroad in India, Nepal, and Mozambique, working with organizations such as UNICEF. She also discusses child labor in North America: in families, fields, stores, and fast-food chains. A fascinating history of childhood shows how recent are terms such as preschooler and teenager and how little relevance they have in poor countries, where about 140 million children work as much as adults and never attend school. Springer shows that it is nearly always harder for girls, who are educated less and do mostly unpaid work at home. There are easy-to-read sidebars, charts, and maps, but it is the personal accounts that have the most authority. The pictures of small brick-makers, garbage pickers, migrant workers, and bonded laborers are heartbreaking, and the voices are authentic, whether the speaker is a Mexican American farmworker in Pennsylvania, a 10-year-old carpet weaver in Nepal, a soldier in Mozambique, or a sex worker in Toronto. Although Springer is never simplistic about boycotts and sanctions, she quotes contemporary American teenagers who work with human rights organizations and with child labor and consumer groups to try and change things. Her book is a call to action. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0888992912
• ISBN 13: 9780888992918
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 96