Children Of The Dust Days

Focuses on the experiences of children during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, when prolonged drought, coupled with farming techniques, caused massive erosion from Texas to Canada's wheat fields.

A powerful post-nuclear holocaust novel described by the author as, 'my cry against the monstrous weapons men have made'. Everyone thought, when the alarm bell rang, that it was just another fire practice. But the first bombs had fallen on Hamburg and Leningrad, the headmaster said, and a full-scale nuclear attack was imminent . . . It's a real-life nightmare. Sarah and her family have to stay cooped up in the tightly-sealed kitchen for days on end, dreading the inevitable radioactive fall-out and the subsequent slow, torturous death, which seems almost preferable to surviving in a grey, dead world, choked by dust. But then, from out of the dust and the ruins and the desolation, comes new life, a new future, and a whole brave new world...

Illus. with photographs from the Dust Bowl era. This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as "dumb Okies," the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school--until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field.

"Using the writings of his grandmother, Margaret Spader Neises, and mother, Joan Neises Volk, author Craig Volk creates a one-year diary that details the life and times of a woman during 1932."--

Winner of the Christopher Medal and a "heart-wrenching" Al Roker's Book Club selection on the Today Show. Zulaikha hopes. She hopes for peace, now that the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan; a good relationship with her hard stepmother; and one day even to go to school, or to have her cleft palate fixed. Zulaikha knows all will be provided for her--"Inshallah," God willing. Then she meets Meena, who offers to teach her the Afghan poetry she taught her late mother. And the Americans come to her village, promising not just new opportunities and dangers, but surgery to fix her face. These changes could mean a whole new life for Zulaikha--but can she dare to hope they'll come true?

Unfurling like a medieval book of days, each page of Eduardo Galeano's Children of the Days has an illuminating story that takes inspiration from that date of the calendar year, resurrecting the heroes and heroines who have fallen off the historical map, but whose lives remind us of our darkest hours and sweetest victories. Challenging readers to consider the human condition and our own choices, Galeano elevates the little-known heroes of our world and decries the destruction of the intellectual, linguistic, and emotional treasures that we have all but forgotten. Readers will discover many inspiring narratives in this collection of vignettes: the Brazilians who held a "smooch-in" to protest against a dictatorship for banning kisses that "undermined public morals;" the astonishing day Mexico invaded the United States; and the "sacrilegious" women who had the effrontery to marry each other in a church in the Galician city of A Coruna in 1901. Galeano also highlights individuals such as Pedro Fernandes Sardinha, the first bishop of Brazil, who was eaten by Caete Indians off the coast of Alagoas, as well as Abdul Kassem Ismael, the grand vizier of Persia, who kept books safe from war by creating a walking library of 117,000 tomes aboard four hundred camels, forming a mile-long caravan. Beautifully translated by Galeano's longtime collaborator, Mark Fried, Children of the Days is a majestic humanist treasure that shows us how to live and how to remember. It awakens the best in us.

Key recommendations - Methods and scope. -- Background on street children in Hanoi. Numbers of street children in Hanoi - "Some days I earn nothing"--Government bodies responsible for child protection - Relief, juvenile justice, and administrative policies for children in Vietnam. -- Trang's story: from Dong Dau to Ba Vi and back to the streets again. First arrest (March 2004): "They never gave me any reason" - "They beat me more when I asked them to stop" - "I have read in the newspapers ... they help you go home" - Second arrest (June 1, 2004): "How bad could 15 days be?" - To Va Vi (June 14, 2004): Another commitment - Release (September 14, 2004). -- The evolution of Vietnam's approach to street children. 1980s: institutionalization - New directions in the 1990s - Drop-in centers and street-based services - Ongoing institutionalization and street sweeps - The 2003 crackdown - 2004: more policies, little action - The situation now. -- Human rights abuses of street children. Round-up campaigns - Police custody - Detention at Dong Dau Social Protection Center - Abuses at Dong Dau - Detention at Va Vi Social Protection Center. -- Violations of national and international standards. -- Conclusion and recommendations. To the Vietnamese government - To UN agencies. and donor governments. -- Appendix A. -- Appendix B.