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Escape from Camp 14
Before Shin Dong-hyuk, no one born in a North Korean political prison camp had ever escaped. As far as can be determined, Shin is still the only one to do so. He was 23 years old, knew no one, and had never before seen the outside world.
Author Blaine Harden’s homepage features a quote from Canada’s National Post which says Escape from Camp 14 “makes The Hunger Games and its fellow dystopias read like Fantasy Island.” This story has teen appeal in spades.
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The book grew out of the author’s 2008 Washington Post article. Take a look at Sunday’s Wall Street Journal for a long excerpt, which ends with information on how Shin’s story has been vetted.
Shin and Harden are scheduled to appear on the Diane Rehm show on Wednesday, April 4th.
HARDEN, Blaine. Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. 224p. maps. notes. Viking. 2012. Tr $26.95. ISBN 978-0-670-02332-5. LC 2011019555.
Adult/High School–Curriculums are filled with atrocities from the past, such as the Holocaust and slavery, but this book brings to light one that is happening in our lifetime and has been happening for 50 years. In North Korea, more than 100,000 people are held in prison labor camps for often the smallest of crimes, or in the case of Shin Dong-hyuk, the crime of being born there to parents who were “given” to each other for good behavior. Raised in starvation conditions (the day he licked spilled soup off the floor is not even the worst attempt to feed himself), Shin had no idea there was another world out there. That is, until he was thrown into prison at age 13 and brutally tortured when his mother and brother tried to escape. There, for the first time, he met someone who had lived on the outside, and a small seed of potential was planted. At age 23, Shin finally made his escape into China, the first known person who was born in the camps to escape them. However, it’s no surprise that in his late ‘20s, he doesn’t always make wise decisions and is unprepared for life on the outside. Harden originally wrote Shin’s story for the Washington Post, and he brings a journalist’s eye to filling in backstory on North Korean policies and conditions. For example, why does South Korea turn a relatively blind eye to these atrocities? The answer may surprise. This is the kind of eye-opening book that motivates change and involvement.–Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library, MD
Filed under: Nonfiction
About Angela Carstensen
Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.
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