Be the Change

August 15, 2011

Hunter, the teen spokesperson for a student-led anti-slavery organization, inspires readers to become activists.

Each chapter, named with a key word such as "community," "leadership" or "compassion," starts with an inspirational story or about one or more contemporary or historical figures, transitions into the author's take on the key word in question and ends with a set of discussion questions. Chapters are short, with plenty of white space, and relevant, visually appealing quotations and statistics are scattered throughout. The author's activism is rooted in his Christianity, and he uses a number of Bible verses and stories to make his points (as well as a couple of brief but possibly alienating references to abstinence as an example of "solid morals" and a historical figure "ministering to Jews"). The author gives a variety of anecdotes and statistics about what he calls modern-day slavery—a group of boys in Zambia being tricked into an exploitative choir; an elementary school-aged girl sold by her family into forced labor—but readers won't come away with a big-picture sense of global politics or the forces that make this sort of exploitation possible. Instead, the author asks readers to find issues about which they are passionate and ask God to guide them toward the next step.

Accessible, if slightly insubstantial. (Inspirational nonfiction. 12-18)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2011

Gr 8-11-In seventh grade, Hunter started an organization called Loose Change to Loosen Chains, to raise money for groups that rescue slaves. With this update to his Be the Change (Zondervan, 2007), the 19-year-old abolitionist continues his campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking. Motivating teens to action, he shares his personal experiences and encounters with other modern-day humanitarians. Hunter has an easy, conversational tone and maintains an upbeat, empowering outlook. Inspired by the 2006 movie Amazing Grace, he mentions Christian idealist William Wilberforce and others depicted in the movie. He asks readers to "consider what that must have been like" to suffer under oppression or to fight for their beliefs. "Just the facts" sidebars offer statistical data from named sources (e.g., U.S. State Department, UNICEF) but no dates. Compared to the original, this revision offers minimal changes. The preface states, "we decided to leave my 14-year-old voice and writing intact." The majority of new material consists of a few paragraphs about agencies of social change and supplementary sentences to some personal stories. End-of-chapter discussion questions remain the same. While websites have been updated, only some statistical data in "Just the facts" has been changed. The discussions of abolition and trafficking are mostly anecdotal, more suited to general readers than report writers. With little difference between editions, this is an optional purchase.-June Shimonishi, Torrance Public Library, CA

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