"Little Princes" by Conor Grennan

I was drawn to reading this book after having many people recommend another book with a similar theme, Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea. I confess that I have had a fascination with the exploits of travellers in the Nepalese region ever since I did a school project on Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Mount Everest but my view has always been coloured with the rose tinted glasses I seem to be wearing – the majesty of the mountains, the picturesque villages and people – as I had never visited this part of the world myself.


What I didn’t know was the recent history of the area where the civil conflict between the Maoist rebels and King of Nepal meant many Nepalese families lost their children when they were abducted by the rebel army. This is not the story of those child soldiers, but one of families so desperate to ensure the welfare of their children that they paid large sums of money to unknown people to take their children to a better life in the Kathmandu Valley which was still free from Maoist control. What they didn’t know was that once the children reached there they were abandoned by the people given the responsibility of looking after them or made to beg for food and money much like a scene from a Charles Dickins novel.

The author, Conor Grennan, was a young man who was embarking on a year long trip overseas and thought the women he met would be impressed when he said that his trip would include a period doing voluntary work with children in a developing country during a civil war. Little did he realise that his three months working in an orphanage in Kathmandu would draw him into the plight of these children who thought they were orphans, eventually returning after his trip to set up an orphanage of his own, and to try to reunite some of the children with their parents.

I couldn’t put this book down and I think everyone, including our teenage children, should read this book to appreciate the life we live here in Australia. I’m certainly going to suggest my 15 year old, who visited Cambodia and Laos with school last year, gives it a try.