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One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
by Conor Grennan
Book Reviewed by:Little Princes is the epic story of Conor Grennan's battle to save the lost children of Nepal and how he found himself in the process. Part Three Cups of Tea, part Into Thin Air, Grennan's remarkable memoir is at once gripping and inspirational, and it carries us deep into an exotic world that most readers know little about.
One Person Can Make a Difference
In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children's Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.
Conor was initially reluctant to volunteer, unsure whether he had the proper skill, or enough passion, to get involved in a developing country in the middle of a civil war. But he was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war - for a huge fee - by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.
For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury. Waiting for Conor back in Kathmandu, and hopeful he would make it out before being trapped in by snow, was the woman who would eventually become his wife and share his life's work.
Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.
Visit the Next Generation Nepal website
Prologue
December 20, 2006
It was well after nightfall when I realized we had gone the wrong way. The village I had been looking for was somewhere up the mountain. In my condition, it would be several hours' walk up a rocky trail, if we could even find the trail in the pitch-dark. My two porters and I had been walking for thirteen hours straight. Winter at night in the mountains of northwestern Nepal is bitterly cold, and we had no shelter. Two of our three flashlights had burned out. Worse, we were deep in a Maoist rebel stronghold, not far from where a colleague had been kidnapped almost exactly one year before. I would have shared this fact with my porters, but we were unable to communicate; I spoke only a few words of the local dialect.
Exhausted, I slumped down beside them. I zipped up my jacket and knotted my arms tightly around my chest to keep out the cold. Six days had passed since I split from my team. I had sent them home, back to their villages, promising them that ...
Inspiring and utterly captivating, Little Princes
earned 4 or more stars from 23 out of 24 BookBrowse readers!
Here's what they have to say:
Written with humor and page-turning suspense, Little Princes follows the author's growth from an adventure-seeking college kid to the founder of a worldwide organization (Mindy).
Reading this flawless memoir is like traveling to Nepal; you'll be captivated by the scenery, struck by the challenges her citizens face, and fall in love with the people themselves, especially the children (Amber B).
As an American reader I am once again reminded that human joy comes from the spirit, not the bank account.
Thank you for a remarkable book and for inspiring me to take personal action in this world of increasing disparity (Nancy F).
I could not put the book down once I started reading it (Priscilla M)!..continued
Full Review
(857 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
Funny, touching, tragic. Conor Grennan's Little Princes is a remarkable tale of corruption, child trafficking and civil war in a far away land - and one man's extraordinary quest to reunite lost Nepalese children with their parents.According to Next Generation Nepal's website, the 1996-2006 Nepalese civil war between government forces and the insurgent Communist Party of Nepal claimed 12,000 lives and devastated the economy; and, in remote areas of the country, the Maoist rebels used intimidation and even murder to control villages and abduct children into their army. Even though the conflict officially ended in 2006, child traffickers have continued to prey on rural villagers' concerns for their children by deceiving families with promises of safety for their children and attendance at top boarding schools in the Kathmandu Valley - but the sad reality is that the children who are taken from their homes are often kept as slaves or beggars, taken to illegal ...
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