num_pages: 268
description: Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt—then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words—"Simply to endure is to triumph"—and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision—will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.
language: English
title: Sold
titlecomplete: Sold
genres: Banned Books, Abuse, Teen, India, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Poetry, Contemporary, Fiction, Realistic Fiction
ratings_count: 57308
places: South Asia, Delhi, India, New Delhi, Nepal
awards: awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: South Carolina Book Award
category: Young Adult Book Award, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Rhode Island Teen Book Award, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: The Quill Award
category: Young adult/teen, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
category: Jugendbuch, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: California Young Readers Medal
category: Young Adult, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Lincoln Award, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: James Cook Book Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Young People's Literature, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Gateway Readers Award
publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers