A book review of Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes Around the World by Robin Kirk
Stars: ****
Chicago Review Press (2022)
Children’s Fiction> Activism and Social Justice
240 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: Many young people aren’t aware that determined individuals created the rights we now take for granted.
The idea of human rights is relatively recent, coming out of a post–World War II effort to draw nations together and prevent or lessen suffering. Righting Wrongs introduces children to the true stories of 20 real people who invented and fought for these ideas. Without them, many of the rights we take for granted would not exist.
These heroes have promoted women’s, disabled, and civil rights; action on climate change; and the rights of refugees. These advocates are American, Sierra Leonean, Norwegian, and Argentinian. Eleven are women. Two identified as queer. Twelve are people of color. One campaigned for rights as a disabled person. Two identify as Indigenous. Two are Muslim and two are Hindu, and others range from atheist to devout Christian. There are two journalists, one general, three lawyers, one Episcopal priest, one torture victim, and one Holocaust survivor.
Their stories of hope and hard work show how people working together can change the world for the better.
Righting Wrongs
The book is full of mini biographies of people who have fought for change such as social activists. For each of the people, a chapter title and then the person’s name is given. A little flag icon then tells us whose rights that person fought for. The person icon tells us when they lived and the GPS icon tells us where.
The person’s story is included, written for a juvenile audience of 8-12 but perfect for ages 13+ as well. At the end of the story are some discussion questions. You can think about them yourself or discuss them with others who are reading the book.
At the end of the book is a What Can I Do section that will help the child reading this book to think about what injustices they care about and how they can help. There is also a set of websites to visit for more information on each activist.
I’ll be honest and say I’ve never heard of any of these people but that’s because I don’t know as much about activism as I should. That’s on me. So I can’t comment on the choice of people to be included but as the summary says, a wide variety of people were included. People were from different backgrounds, different countries and different view points. I think this is important and was a good choice for the book.
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