Founded in 1961, Amnesty International is a nonprofit organization that works to protect human rights around the world. It has two million members, supporters and subscribers. The organization was awarded a Nobel peace prize in 1977. Recently, a book it sponsored came into my possession.
Free?: Stories About Human Rights is a collection featuring 14 authors from around the globe. According to the bios at the back, most specialize in children's stories. None take place in the United States, which is understandable given that Americans take freedom for granted. All of the works come down on the side of the angels. I particularly enjoyed three.
Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads by David Almond chronicles the adjustments made to life in England by a boy who escaped from East Germany, where his parents suffered a nasty fate. He falls in with a mischievous crew, whose pranks puzzle him.
Prince Francis by Roddy Doyle, set in Ireland, provides laughter as a female class "big mouth" is assigned to conduct interviews of her peers as if she were a TV reporter. The title character grew up in Northern Ireland.
Setting Words Free by Margaret Mahy relates an adolescent boy's love of words and his meeting with a girl from the tough neighborhood his now middle class dad escaped and warns his son to avoid. She shares his passion for well-turned phrases. The book's 202 pages read like considerably less, the prose and dialogue polished and unpretentious. After the bios, two pages are dedicated to a simplified version of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, published by the UK branch of AI in 1948. There are 30. Here is the first: "We are all born free and equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated the same way." Those fortunate to be living in the U.S. and much of the western world might scratch their heads at thoughts that seem so obvious. Unfortunately, there are still people around the world who would love to live in a place where such ideas are a given. Only two users at Amazon have rated the book. One gave it five stars, the other two. I give it three.
My thanks to the sweet elderly woman who donated about 25 children's books, and to the middle age one who bought more than ten. Without them it would have been a very disappointing session. My only regret is that the older woman didn't find anything to her liking among the selections in Russian. I would have given her as many as she wanted.
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