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3rd out of 32 books
—
17 voters
Boys Without Names
For eleven-year-old Gopal and his family, life in their rural Indian village is over: We stay, we starve, his baba has warned. So they must flee to the big city of Mumbai in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. Gopal is eager to help support his struggling family until school starts, so when a stranger approaches him with the promise of a factory job, he jumps at t...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
January 19th 2010
by Balzer + Bray
(first published December 31st 2009)
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Author Jacqueline Woodson described this book as “not a heartbreaking story, even if there are moments that break the heart.” This is absolutely true and one of the reasons I would consider this as a read-aloud selection in 3rd or 4th grade.
It tells the story of an 11yr old boy in India whose family has lost their farm and travels to Mumbai looking for jobs that will help sustain them as well as provide education for their children.
Gopal, thinking he has found a job to earn money for his family...more
It tells the story of an 11yr old boy in India whose family has lost their farm and travels to Mumbai looking for jobs that will help sustain them as well as provide education for their children.
Gopal, thinking he has found a job to earn money for his family...more
I chose this book because the title looked interesting. I also liked the summary of the book at the back. Gopal was sold by a young man to a place where six other boy (didn’t know each other’s names) are forced to make bead patterns on frames. Gopal charms every boy to tell their stories and reveal their names; this made the boys braver and stronger friends. My favorite quote in this book was the conversation between the boys and Gopal, “Amar holds on to my arm. You can’t go. You have to be with...more
Living in the United States we often forget about the atrocities that go on around the world, such as child labor. Gopal and his family must sneak off in the middle of the night from their tiny village and go to Mumbai. The family has borrowed money and the interest is keeping them in debt. Gopal’s uncle has left them traveling money. On the way the family realizes they don’t have enough money. The father leaves them on the street alone while he tries to reach his brother’s house. He gets lost....more
My sole difficulty with this book was the fact that it may have caused me to grind me teeth into tiny nubs. Gopal has moved with his family from rural India to an unsanitary and rather packed area of Mumbai with a relative. Having lost his father along the way, Gopal is determined to set out and earn money for the family himself. Unfortunately his intrepid nature sets him up to be a perfect kidnapping object. Next thing he knows he's in a small attic with five other boys, forced to put beads on...more
Boys Without Names is written by Kashmira Sheth and tells the story of eleven-year-old Gopal whose family is one of the millions of extremely poor families in rural India. Hoping to find work, his father takes the family to the big city of Mumbai. Gopal has dreams of continuing his education there, but in the meantime he tries to find work to help his family. However, he is deceived and enslaved with other boys in a sweatshop from which he cannot leave . Although India is emerging as a more mode...more
This book is about a boy, Gopal, and his family in India. The family must leave their small village home for financial reasons and move to Mumbai, a large and overwhelming city. Gopal wants to help his family by getting a job. He meets an older teen who offers him a job in a factory. Soon Gopal finds himself locked in a sweatshop with other boys, forced to work long hours each day making beaded picture frames. Will he be able to get to break the wall separating him and the other boys? Will he fi...more
Eleven-year-old Gopal enjoys life in his rural Indian village, but he knows a change is coming. His parents have trusted him enough to let him know that they have had to sell their onion farm and will be moving to Mumbai to escape their debt to the local moneylender and build a better life for themselves, Gopal, and the 6-year-old twins. Gopal is a clever dreamer, keeping his siblings entertained with stories, but he wants to do more. The promise of a factory job leads him straight into a trap -...more
Gopal and his family live in dire poverty in a small village in India. So the father makes the difficult decision for the family to move to Mumbai and locate a relative, and find jobs. In the huge city the family is separated from baba, and after living with their uncle for several weeks, Gopal decides he has to find work. He thinks he has found a wonderful job when a young man approaches him with an offer in a factory. This wonderful job turns out to be a cramped, filthy sweatshop existence wit...more
Sometimes I buy books specifically to fit a curricular need. There's a local assignment that requires 5th or 6th grade students to read about contemporary children growing up in a foreign culture. When this ARC arrived in the mail, I pegged it as one to recommend for that assignment.
Fortunately, the book also happens to make compelling reading. I had to know what happened to Gopal, an optimistic, storyteller of a boy whose family is forced by a debt collector from their Indian farming village in...more
Fortunately, the book also happens to make compelling reading. I had to know what happened to Gopal, an optimistic, storyteller of a boy whose family is forced by a debt collector from their Indian farming village in...more
I gave Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth 4 stars, the best rating I have given so far. First of all, I strongly recommend this book to readers that like realistic fiction especially related to child slavery. This book is set in India where there is still slavery going on in the modern days. The boys are abused and treated like trash. As I read this book, even though I could not relate, it really motivated me to think that the world needs to do something to stop child slavery. I really wish th...more
The subject matter of this novel had great potential. It tells the story of Gopal's family who are forced to flee their village and try to find work in Mumbai, to avoid usurious moneylenders. Whilst the protagonist is likeable, plot action is slow: the first eighty pages, for example, comprises only their trip to the city. Soon after their arrival Gopal is tricked into working in a sweatshop, which highlights the horrendous conditions experienced by children in this situation. At the end, a numb...more
This is a story about a young boy named Gopal, who is growing up in India. His family farms a small onion farm. A huge monsoon season forces them to relocate to Mumbai to live with his uncle, and escape debt collectors. When they get there, Gopal is the only one who can read and write, and thus his parents rely on him greatly to get them all to his uncle's house. A turn of events forces them to separate, and his father is missing. Gopal meets a young boy who talks to him about working in a facto...more
What can I say about Boys Without Names? It is such an amazing book, that I’m not sure describing it, or just using words like ‘moving,’ ‘poignant,’ and ‘beautifully painful’ really do it justice. It’s a simple yet profound story that everyone in America should read, not just teens. It’s important that we as a culture understand that many of the nice things that we want at a cheap price often come at an incredibly high price for someone else. Including becoming a slave.
Read it! Expand your world...more
Read it! Expand your world...more
The book Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth is a wonderful book.
This book is about a boy named Gopal who moves to Mumbai from his rural village and tries to find work to support his family. He is kidnapped and made servant to a man who traps him there and makes him work in inhumane conditions with 5 other boys. The story is about friendships, family, and the true cruelty about child labor.
Boys Without Names is an amazing book that has very good description. For example when Gopal described...more
This book is about a boy named Gopal who moves to Mumbai from his rural village and tries to find work to support his family. He is kidnapped and made servant to a man who traps him there and makes him work in inhumane conditions with 5 other boys. The story is about friendships, family, and the true cruelty about child labor.
Boys Without Names is an amazing book that has very good description. For example when Gopal described...more
Gopal, 11, and his family leave rural India to travel to Mumbai in hopes of finding a better way of life, jobs, and security. His Uncle Jama has a shack in the city and a job...Gopal's family is sure they can find happiness there, too. But, on the way to Mumbai, Gopal's father goes missing and those left behind find it hard to get to Mumbai, but they do, without their father.
Gopal doesn't listen to his uncle when he tells him all he has to worry about is getting an education...he wants to work...more
Gopal doesn't listen to his uncle when he tells him all he has to worry about is getting an education...he wants to work...more
This fictionalized story of child labor in India is fascinating, disturbing and hopeful at the same time. It is an eye-opening look at the plight of young children in foreign countries, and is evidently well researched by the author. It is also about the power of friendship, caring and story-telling. Readers will care about Gopal, the main character, as well as the other young boys. I did feel the book ended a bit abruptly; I would have liked a bit more closure.
An excellent choice for students i...more
An excellent choice for students i...more
I could not stop reading this book. It was roller-coaster of hope and despair, from the onion bumper crop taking the main character, Gobal’s family into poverty - to the darkened loft where the boys were gagged and hid from rescuers.
Though based on a somber topic (child slavery), the characters’ spirit and determination kept the story from being depressing. Reading level seems appropriate for upper elementary grades or older because of the complexity of the issues, violence, and relationships....more
Though based on a somber topic (child slavery), the characters’ spirit and determination kept the story from being depressing. Reading level seems appropriate for upper elementary grades or older because of the complexity of the issues, violence, and relationships....more
Sad story about a young boy, the son of an onion farmer in India. When his family loses their small farm they must move to the city of Mumbai so his father can find work. Gopal is eleven and the city is fascinating to him, but things go wrong almost immediately when his father disappears and he is left with his mother and twin sibilings. Gopal feels that he must work to help his family, and when a stranger offers him a job in a factory, Gopal is elated. But instead of a job, Gopal is snatched aw...more
An 11 year old boy named Gopal makes a difficult transition with his family and moves to a different location. But as the moving begins, family comes apart. Not a divorce or a "Help Us!" way. But in a way that means "loosing each other". As the moving starts to happen, Gopal's family goes missing and is apart for a fair amount of time, it's so scary and sad. However, in between, Gopal gets caught and is stolen to a different area called "slavery". As you can see on the book cover, there are invi...more
It was a good book and I wanted to know what was going to happen to Gopal. I felt some parts were repetitive. I like the background and character development the author took the time to write about in the beginning about Gopal and his family. This creates a relationship between the characters and the reader. Their is a really handy name guide in the back of the book; however, I think it would be better placed if it was in the beginning of the book. This way it would be easier to access while rea...more
This is the novel all 7th graders in SFS are supposed to read. All 7th grade novels are about boys, but on the other hand, all 8th grade novels are about girls...... That's so sad.......I think that's the main difference between 7th and 8th grade. Well as most people know, there is a purpose for reading novels in the school. Education. This is one of them, too. We were studying about India, and this was totally about it. I would like to recommend this to people who study India. First this book w...more
This is an interesting book that is a good recommendation. The book's story revolves around Gopal, an Indian kid from a rural village who comes to the urban for certain reasons that will definitely spoil some the plot. The characters in this book, or the boys, all have different and unique personalities, backgrounds, appearances, and support to the story, the same can also go for the adult character that impacts a major part of the story and will not be named for the sensitive nature of the plot...more
Positives: This book depicts the horrors of child labor with characters that will help students to relate to the trauma that children in other parts of the world go through. They will also learn a lot about Indian culture in the process.
Negatives: There is a lot of vocabulary in other languages, so you have to keep flipping back and forth to the glossary. This interupts the flow of the book a lot. The action of the book (the sweatshop) doesn't start until almost halfway through the book, and the...more
Negatives: There is a lot of vocabulary in other languages, so you have to keep flipping back and forth to the glossary. This interupts the flow of the book a lot. The action of the book (the sweatshop) doesn't start until almost halfway through the book, and the...more
There are plenty of reasons why people who support equality and human rights would like this book. Boys Without Names takes place in current-day India. The story revolves around a boy called Gopal, whose family farmed and recently went out of business. The family is poor to pay back their debt, and move to Mumbai. Gopal decides to help his family and is tricked into working at a sweatshop, where he is cut off from the outside world. He is trapped in with a group of other boys in inhuman conditio...more
This is not the typical "my type" of novels, I have to say it's amazing!
It's a story set in Mumbai, India. It talks about 6 little boys who end up working in this factory for a man who slaves them to say the least. They are not allowed to talk to each other or call each other by name and that's where the name of the novel comes from. But, there might be a hope at the end of the road for these children, will the boys without names manage to find their way through?
you will just have to read it to...more
It's a story set in Mumbai, India. It talks about 6 little boys who end up working in this factory for a man who slaves them to say the least. They are not allowed to talk to each other or call each other by name and that's where the name of the novel comes from. But, there might be a hope at the end of the road for these children, will the boys without names manage to find their way through?
you will just have to read it to...more
Gopal and his family must leave their small village in hopes of finding work in Mumbai. Gopal wants to help support his struggling family, so when a stranger approaches him with the promise of a factory job, he jumps at the offer. Gopal is drugged and taken far away from his family to work in a sweat shop with other boys. They are forced to work for no money, little food, and they are locked in at night so they can't run away. Gopal despairs of ever seeing his family again, but as he tries to un...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
***Spoiler Alert***
"Boys WIthout Names" by Kashmira Sheth is a novel about human trafficking and child labor. The story starts with the main character loosing his family by following a stranger friend (or so he thought) and eventually becomes part of a sweat shop for making bead frames. Though it is a touching novel and incorporates many moral values throughout the story, the overall plot felt very slow paced and often felt boring at parts. The entire novel seemed to keep repeating over and over...more
"Boys WIthout Names" by Kashmira Sheth is a novel about human trafficking and child labor. The story starts with the main character loosing his family by following a stranger friend (or so he thought) and eventually becomes part of a sweat shop for making bead frames. Though it is a touching novel and incorporates many moral values throughout the story, the overall plot felt very slow paced and often felt boring at parts. The entire novel seemed to keep repeating over and over...more
Gopal and his family (Naren, Sita, Ai and Baba) are forced to sell their farm and leave their rural village in India when his dad fails to make money off their crop. In hard times, you often remember the generosity of others. They remember their kind Uncle Jama and set off to Mumbai to ask him for help. Being countryfolk, however, they quickly discover they don’t have enough money for train fare and end up being stranded halfway at a station. Baba, Gopal's father, decides to forge ahead to find...more
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Kashmira Sheth grew up in Bhavangar, Gujarat, for eight years, when she was three she joined Montessori school. She lived with her grandparents, because her parents lived in Mumbai three hundred miles away from Bhavangar.
At eight years Sheth, left Bhavangar, for Mumbai.
She did her studying there until she was seventeen. She left Mumbai, to go to college, in Ames Iowa to do her BS at Iowa State Un...more
More about Kashmira Sheth...
At eight years Sheth, left Bhavangar, for Mumbai.
She did her studying there until she was seventeen. She left Mumbai, to go to college, in Ames Iowa to do her BS at Iowa State Un...more
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Jan 30, 2013 05:08am