Rating: **** 4 stars

Complied by Amnesty International,
Free? Stories Celebrating Human Rights
Walker Books, 2009.

 Ages 10-14

A roll call of international children’s authors contributes stories to this collection, each tale illustrating Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Many, like David Almond, Malorie Blackman, Jamila Gavin and Michael Morpurgo, are already well known in the UK – others deserve to be.

A themed anthology – however worthy its brief – is a perilous enterprise. It risks earnestness in place of imagination, but there are few duds in this collection and plenty of unexpected wit on offer. A number of the contributors had a surreal take on their chosen Article. I enjoyed Kenyan Meja Mwangi’s tale exploring governmental democracy through a playful bird-metaphor. Sarah Mussi’s very funny ‘Scout’s Honour’, where an innocent and well-intentioned young visitor from Ghana comes up against the British establishment, sparkles both in form and content, as does Roddy Doyle’s ‘Prince Francis’ which looks at issues of home and nationality. Other stories compel through unadorned narrative: Jamila Gavin’s account of a young woman fleeing an unhappy arranged marriage has an inevitable trajectory, which draws the reader poignantly along in its wake.

The collection ranges widely in place and time from a post-war Britain where anti-German feeling is viciously alive to ravaged Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Here the plight of the flood-victims is conjured in searing free verse by US author, Rita Williams-Garcia.

Malorie Blackman’s alarming and prescient sci-fi. poem reminds young readers that basic freedoms to think and move independently are under threat through the constant development of new surveillance and ‘identity’ technologies.

An appendix gives a brief history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, together with a simplified listing of the 30 Articles. Brief biographies of the contributors help to introduce interested readers to new authors. Highly recommended both as an adjunct to Citizenship studies and as a moving and provocative read in its own right.

Guide to the rating system:
***** 5 stars, unmissable
**** 4 stars, very good
*** 3 stars, good
** 2 stars, fair
* 1 star, poor