Sydney Blixt Post # 5

Merriam-Websters' defines a story as a "statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question". This definition is true, but is lacking so much. A story is young fresh faced children gazing up at their teacher, a story is the princess winning the prince, a story is human. There is many things that separate and make humans so extraordinary and different from anything else, but there is one factor that truly shows one is human. All humans posses the ability to tell a story, to make believe. And although it may be hard, all humans can put themselves in another's shoes and let somebody else take them on a journey. Stories are not only a quality of humans, but they are a way of sharing information and traditions. Without stories of our "ancestors" even stories of others past mistakes, humans would not be able to function, and would not truly be human.

Sold, By Patricia McCormick tells the story of a young girl sold into child prostitution. Sold tells a STORY. The book isn't just a jumble of facts,accounts, and statistics. Harsh numbers and facts are can really prove a point and be meaningful, but a story is as powerful or more. McCormick takes something so complex and brutal, something so confusing and twisted like child prostitution and transforms it into a simple and most importantly emotional STORY of Lakshmi, a 13 year old "mountain" girl. Sold is written with a short and simple syntax that while keeping the story flowing, makes this topic easier to understand and take in. Without the story of this girl and someone for a reader to have empathy and really think about, Sold wouldn't be anywhere as powerful. The story of Lakshmi begins in the hills, the girl is a growing preteen that wants nothing more than a tin roof for her family. She is then deceived by her own stepfather and sold from various person to person until she is dropped off at the Happiness House. There she is brutally beaten, tortured, and taken advantage of. Lakshmi is forced into a life that isn't hers, she is a peaceful Innocent child not a dirty, empty slave.The story progresses throughout the novel and so does the tone, the beginning of the book starts out hope full, then as the story moves on the tone changes to depressed,angry and sad. Eventually, as Lakshmi meets American costumers that promise to save her, the story and tone begin to show that glimmer of hope once more.