Big Bad and the Bored Canary

by Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco, Ana Rodić (Illustrator)

The Big Bad Books series is designed to forewarn children to the recruitment and control schemes exploited by human traffickers. Using fables and age-appropriate language, the aim of these books is to socialize kids with the reality that most crime is committed by acquaintances or people we know, who attempt to gain our trust using coercion, deception, and fraud, and less often by strangers and through kidnapping. Big Bad and the Bored Canary is loosely inspired by the case of United States v. Aleksandr Maksimenko, where young women were lured from Ukraine to the United States, forced to work, and turn over the entirety of their earnings.

52 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 6, 2021

About the author

Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco is an accomplished survey methodologist, research scientist, and quantitative & qualitative consultant on issues related to human trafficking. She is one of the few researchers with a background to qualify as an expert witness and subject matter expert on human trafficking in criminal and civil court. Her work is published in books, peer reviewed journals, magazines, and news outlets. She has served as a peer reviewer for human trafficking publications and taught human trafficking material at the #1 ranked criminology school in the country, University of Maryland College Park.

Reviews

[Claudia Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good idea but not well executed

The writing is terrible and the story isn't well laid out for kids. Way too short for the subject matter and very awkwardly phrased.