School Library Journal (Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2010)

Gr 4-7 Eager to find work after his hungry family arrives in Mumbai, 11-year-old Gopal ends up locked in a one-room "factory" making beaded frames with five other boys so beaten down they don't even talk to one another. Gopal's story is not uncommon: a bumper crop year drove prices down, money was borrowed to pay for medicine, the farm was lost but the debt remained, and the family was forced to flee to the city to find work. Gopal stores up his memories of his rural Indian village, with its pond, fruit trees, and bird songs, contrasting them with the noisy stink of their new home at the end of a sewage-laden lane in an overcrowded shantytown. Readers quickly come to care for this clever, perceptive boy who tries hard to do the right thing. Suspense mounts as it becomes clear that escape from the sweatshop will not be easy: the other boys need to be convinced. Storytelling is the key to winning them over, and Sheth includes bits of tales both familiar and new. The author includes more about child labor at the end of this well-told survival story with a social conscience. Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

When 11-year-old Gopal's family tries to escape crushing debt by leaving their village in India for his uncle's home in Mumbai, Gopal is eager to help earn money, especially after his father disappears. Gopal is fooled by the promise of a factory job and ends up a slave in a small shack with five other boys he must nickname because none is allowed to say his name. Suffering a under a cruel boss, Gopal slowly unites the boys though storytelling, with each boy reclaiming his past and his name. Sheth's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Keeping Corner) lush prose (“It is as if someone has rubbed this rough sack on my heart over and over again and made it bleed”) creates a vivid portrait of slave labor without losing the thread of hope that Gopal clings to. Though certain lines of dialogue seem improbable (“The promise was like a rose, but what I got was one big thorn of a boss”), the characters are strong and believable, with Gopal being particularly relatable. The happy ending may be slightly unrealistic but nonetheless satisfies. Ages 9–12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)

Voice of Youth Advocates

Eleven-year-old GopalÆs family moves from their rural village to Mumbai to escape crippling debt and poverty following the loss of their onion farm. Shortly after arriving, GopalÆs father, Baba, vanishes, and Gopal accepts a strangerÆs offer to earn money to support his family. The promised factory turns out to be a sweatshop in which Gopal and other boys are imprisoned by a cruel boss nicknamed Scar, who beats and starves them. Gopal eventually begins to connect with the other boys through the imaginative stories he tells them each night, and their new closeness gives the boys the courage to try to escape. Sheth, author of Keeping Corner (Hyperion/DBG, 2007/VOYA December 2007), chronicles her extensive research on child labor in an informative authorÆs note that includes a short list of resources for further reading. Young readers will be intrigued by the Hindi, Marathi, and Sanskrit terms sprinkled liberally throughout the text and will appreciate the glossary Sheth provides to define them. Gopal is an appealing protagonist whose imagination, resourcefulness, and indomitable spirit will appeal to the intended middle school audience. Readers will root for him and cheer the novelÆs ending, in which he is rescued by the police and reunited with his family. Despite the happy conclusion, Sheth does not hold back in her depiction of the cruelty and suffering inflicted upon Gopal and his fellow child laborers. Unlike some childrenÆs novels on serious topics, though, this one is never preachy or heavy handed.ùLeah Sparks

Kirkus Reviews

The author returned to her native India to research this fictionalized expose of child labor. Eleven-year-old Gopal and his family, deeply in debt, flee to Mumbai to find work. There, a slick older boy offers Gopal a factory job, then turns him over to a ruthless sweatshop operator. Locked inside a decrepit building with five other despairing boys, Gopal quickly learns the routine. Long days of gluing beads onto picture frames, little food, stifling heat and occasional severe beatings with a rubber hose all keep the boys intimidated. Determined to escape, Gopal befriends the others with his storytelling talents, building bonds that will be useful if an opportunity to flee arises. Gopal is a likable child, and insight into the others boys' believable characters gradually evolves. Although the shocking conditions the boys endure are vividly and realistically depicted, this effort is overlong for the recommended audience of nine through 12, and many readers may give up before they reach the portion of the narrative where Gopal is imprisoned. An enlightening multicultural tale suggested for strong elementary readers and middle schoolers. (Fiction. 11-14)

ALA Booklist (Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Set in contemporary Mumbai, this novel from the author of Keeping Corner (2007) tells a harrowing story of child slavery. Indebted to ruthless moneylenders, 11-year-old Gopal's family flees to Mumbai, where they hope to find work. On the way, Gopal's father goes missing, and Gopal guides his mother and siblings to an uncle's house, where they worry and wait for Baba to find them. Eager to help his family earn money, Gopal follows a local boy to what he thinks will be a day's work at a factory. Instead, he is pulled into a sweatshop single room where five boys are held against their will and forced to produce decorative items with toxic materials. As Gopal dreams of escape, he builds tenuous friendships with his fellow workers. Those wary bonds form a dramatic counterpoint to the children's daily misery, described in moving, palpable detail, and skillfully steer the story away from docu-novel territory to its hopeful conclusion. Pair this eye-opening title with Susan Kuklin's Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders against Child Slavery (1998).