Diego, run! by Deborah Ellis
Deborah Ellis. What an amazing woman! I met her after reading Parvana, and her social conscience just blew me away. Since then she has written books about children in Africa (orphans of the AIDS epidemic) and now she is looking at the exploitation of children in South America.
The story begins with a young man who is actually growing up in a prison. His mother and father have both been imprisoned because a package of cocaine was found taped underneath the bus seat they were sitting in. Diego and his sister are living the the women’s prison with their mother, but visit their father regularly. Diego is old enough to earn a small income running errands for the other prisoners and therefore support his mother.
Then one day one of Diego’s friends hears of an opportunity to earn money, lots of it. He talks Diego into going along with the scheme, and together the two of them end up enslaved and forced to manufacture cocaine. The working conditions are hazardous and once the boys can no longer work, they are killed.
The story ends once Diego has escaped from the work camp, but he is still lost deep in the jungles of Bolivia. Obviously this book is intended to be the first of a series, much like the Parvana series.
Ellis was originally an investigative journalist. As a result her books are all thoroughly researched and graphically accurate. All over the world she has raised awareness of the plight of refugees in her Parvana series. With this series of books she will do the same with the children working as forced labour.
Once again Deborah Ellis has written a book that will challenge young people in a comfortable Western society to consider the lives of children who happened to be born elsewhere.
