Nujood Ali and the Fight Against Child Marriage

Gr 7 Up—This series takes a look at young women who have undergone unimaginable suffering but who used their experiences to help others. Grace Akallo focuses on a young Ugandan teen who was kidnapped and conscripted into Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, while Nujood Ali profiles a Yemeni girl whose father married her off to a 30-year-old man and who, at 10, became the youngest person ever to seek a divorce. Though the books center on well-known cases, they use these examples to explore the larger issues of child soldiers and child marriage in more depth. Both volumes feature an eye-catching layout, with many large color photos accompanied by captions that offer interesting tidbits and sidebars that provide information on related topics, such as teen pregnancy in the United States and the terrorist group Boko Haram. Though the text may be sparse, it packs a punch: these authors don't gloss over difficult subjects.