Little Princes

Starred review from November 15, 2010
Grennan, who once worked at the East West Institute in Prague, embarked on a round-the-world trip in 2006, starting with a stint volunteering for an orphanage six miles south of Kathmandu. The orphanage, called the Little Princes Children's Home, housed 18 children from the remote province of Humla, rescued from a notorious child trafficker who had bought the children from poor villagers terrified of the Maoist insurgents eager for new recruits; the parents hoped to keep their children safe, but the children often ended up as slaves. Grennan was stunned by the trauma endured by these children, who he grew to love over two months, and after completing his world tour, returned to the orphanage and vowed not only to locate seven Humla orphans who had vanished from a foster home, but also to find the parents of the children in the orphanage. This required starting up a nonprofit organization in America, Next Generation Nepal, raising funds, buying a house in Kathmandu for the children's home, and trekking into the mountains of Humla to locate the parents. Grennan's work is by turns self-pokingly humorous, exciting, and inspiring.

February 1, 2011
Grennan volunteered to spend three months at an orphanage in Nepal, helping to tend 18 children orphaned during the civil war when their villages were attacked by Maoist rebels. It was supposed to be a one-off experience, but when he learned that the children were not orphans but had been taken from their families by a child trafficker who enslaved them, he was pulled into their lives in ways he hadnt anticipated. What followed was another three-month stay that grew into a commitment to establish a separate childrens house and attempt to reconnect the children and their families. Grennan details his personal learning curve as he went from a man motivated by making himself look good to a man obsessed with traveling across rugged terrain to reunite families, a childless man learning the joys and agonies of parenthood. He also details the incredible stories of families caught in a civil war, frightened and anxious about the future of their children, and the endearing resiliency of the children themselves, many of them traumatized by war, enslavement, and separation from their families.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)