Fight to Learn

July 1, 2016
Grades 5-8 Many a reluctant young scholar has fantasized about a world without school. For the estimated 124 million children around the globe without access to educationbecause of poverty, discrimination, and violence the notion of a permanent vacation only ensures a future with no chance of improvement. The populations described here forgo schooling for survival: sharecropping or scrounging for scraps (India's untouchables ), begging on the street (Europe's itinerant Roma), or cowering at home for fear of reprisals by Muslim fundamentalists (Pakistan's other Malalas ) or street gangs (residents of Chicago's South Side). Scandiffio relates a half dozen inspiring stories, starting with that of a Bengali boy who, at age nine, started sharing what he'd learned at school with less fortunate friends; before long, hundreds of knowledge seekers began flocking to his backyard, rechristened The Home of Joyful Learning. The closing chapters, about education-reform protests in Canada's First Nation reserves and in Chile, are less dramatic but could serve as a road map for students dealing with inadequacies in their own school systems.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2016
A collection of stories about children who risk much to avail themselves of learning opportunities and determined individuals who fight to bring education to those children.Scandiffio takes readers on an inspiring tour around the world to countries where obstacles to universal access to education such as discrimination, poverty, and war seem insurmountable, yet driven individuals do what they can to bring schooling to many. Okello Kelo Sam, a former child soldier in Uganda, is the founder of a school for children like himself. In a backyard classroom in India, teenager Babar Ali passes on what he has learned to child workers too poor to afford the required uniforms to attend school. Young women in Pakistan risk their very lives to attend school. Obstacles to learning persist even in developed nations, such as Canada, where inequitable resources are allocated for First Nations children, and the United States, where rampant gang violence in Chicago and other cities keeps children from attending school. The book's design features decorated, multicolored page backgrounds and frequent color photographs. This moving look at children going to extraordinary lengths, even risking their lives, to get an education should be required reading for the millions of American students who resent going to school. (photos, bibliography, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

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Starred review from June 1, 2016

Gr 5-8-The obstacles children face worldwide to obtain an education are discussed in accessible terms using real-life examples of how youth and adults fight these barriers-from gender bias in the Middle East to gang violence in Chicago to poverty in India. The work is divided into four topics: poverty, discrimination, violence, and protest movement. Each subject has two sections that discuss the situation through personal narratives, usually from the perspective of an educator. The stories are engaging and well paced. Readers will learn a bit of backstory about how educational inequality is built into a particular culture or region (for example, Roma people were ostracized from the larger European community), what this discrimination means (systematic poverty, high rates of illiteracy), and what people are doing to make a change (Julia Bolton Holloway's Alphabet School and Emir Selimi's activism for Roma people in Sweden). Softly colored pages, clear photographs, and small chalkboard and pinned note insets with quotes from the text help to create visual appeal. Further information is offset in notebooklike graphics. An introduction, an afterword, and main sources are included. VERDICT This is a fascinating and frightening examination of international education issues; a solid addition for libraries wanting more titles on education or social justice.-Tamara Saarinen, Pierce County Library, WA

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