Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children

The haunting photographs in this volume vividly expose a world filled with children who work for pennies a day. ""Children are cheaper to run than tractors and smarter than oxen,"" explains one employer in Pakistan. Parker, a Minnesota physician, has photographed children who toil in many of the world's poorest nations: in Jodhpur, India, a garbage-picking girl wearing a filthy dress looks off into the distance with huge eyes; a stick-thin boy in Jakarta holds out a plastic container for alms, smiling wanly. The words give the images a context: a shocking account of the plight of Pakistani children who toil as bonded laborers in the rug industry is accompanied by a photo of a hunched, weary girl sitting atop a loom. The authors also include developed nations--a sidebar on the history of child labor in the U.S., a young market vendor in St. Paul, Minn., and one in Acapulco. Yet the attempt only points out the vast differences in conditions--the American hovers over healthy mounds of shiny peppers while the child in Mexico leans on a rickety box in a trash-filled street. The text, which lacks the visceral impact of the stark black-and-white photos, at times reads as if it were written primarily to tie the images together. Yet, taken as a whole, this book presents a moving plea to eliminate child labor around the world. A list of organizations that are working toward this end is included. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)