Sold - Softcover

McCormick, Patricia

4.23

58,818 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1484722973 ISBN 13: 9781484722978

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2015

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Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.

He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.

Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words-Simply to endure is to triumph-and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision-will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

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From the Author:

Q: What inspired you to tell this story?

            A: In the past few years , the trafficking of children has gotten a good deal of media attention. But more than five years ago, when I had a chance meeting with a photographer who was working undercover to document the presence of young girls in brothels overseas, I knew immediately that I wanted to do what no one else had done so far: tell this heartbreaking story from the point of view of one individual girl.

            I believe that young adults want to know what's happening to their peers on the other side of the world, but that media accounts, by their very nature, cannot usually go beyond the surface. To me, there is nothing more powerful- or permanent- than the impact of a book.

Q: What did your travel to India and Nepal bring to your story?

A: I spent a month in India and Nepal tracing Lakshmi's steps- going from a poor, isolated village in the foothills of the Himalayas all the way to the teeming red-light district of Calcutta. Trained as an investigative reporter, I took notes and photos observing the sights, smells, foods, sounds, and the customs- details to give the book authenticity. I also interviewed women in the red-light district, girls who had been rescued, and a man who had sold his girlfriend in exchange for a motorcycle. It helped that I was a foreigner in the busy streets of Kathmandu and Calcutta, because I was as bewildered and awestruck by these places as Lakshmi is in the novel.

Q: What were the challenges of bringing Lakshmi's story to life?

A: Perhaps the biggest challenge was not to let the sadness of the situation overwhelm me. When I first came home from India, I fell into a despair unlike anything I'd ever felt before- something I now understand was a delayed reaction to the suffering I'd witnessed. Moreover, I felt inadequate to the task of doing justice to the stories the women had entrusted to me. But when I thought about the young girls who might be recruited to take their places as the women became ill or died, what I felt was urgency- urgency that their experiences be known and understood by the outside world. And I began to write.

It was also a challenge to keep the book from being too grim, and to keep Lakshmi's humanity alive in a believable way. It was important to remember that, in even the grimmest of situations, there is kindness as well as cruelty, terror as well as boredom, and even, surprising as it may seem, humor.

Q: Why did you decide to tell the story in a series of vignettes?

A: I started writing the book in small scenes because, initially, it was too      daunting to imagine that I could tell Lakshmi's entire story. Once I had a
handful of these scenes, the book began to take shape. Eventually, vignettes seemed to be the right way to tell a story that is inherently so fractured- if not shattering. I also think the "white space" between vignettes calls on the reader to engage his or her imagination in the story-telling process to fill in the blanks.

Q: How can we help?

A: Educate yourself by visiting the Web sites for Maiti Nepal and Aapne Aap, then work to raise awareness among your friends and family members, your church or school. Write an essay for your school paper or a letter to your local paper or your congressman. Organize a student group at your school, then show a film about trafficking, invite a speaker, and raise or donate money. The cost of living in countries where trafficking takes place is very low; one week's allowance, for instance, could go a long way toward providing medicine, toys or books for the children of the red-light district, or could contribute to the work of organizations that stop trafficking and provide safety for victims.

As Eli Weisel said, "Let us remember: what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander."

About the Author:

To research Sold, Patricia McCormick traveled to India and Nepal, where she interviewed the women of Calcutta's red-light district and girls who have been rescued from the sex trade. Patricia is a two-time National Book Award finalist, and the author of five critically acclaimed novels, among them Never Fall Down, the story of a boy who survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia by playing music for the Khmer Rouge. Her other books include the YA classicCut, and the young readers' edition of I Am Malala, the story of the Pakistani girl who was targeted by the Taliban for standing up for education. She lives in Manhattan.

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