LITTLE PRINCES: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

 GIVEAWAY ENDED
LITTLE PRINCES

One Man's Promise to Bring

Home the Lost Children of Nepal

BY CONOR GRENNAN

ABOUT THE BOOK: 
One Person Can Make a Difference

In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.

Conor was initially reluctant to volunteer, unsure whether he had the proper skill, or enough passion, to get involved in a developing country in the middle of a civil war. But he was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war—for a huge fee—by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury. Waiting for Conor back in Kathmandu, and hopeful he would make it out before being trapped in by snow, was the woman who would eventually become his wife and share his life’s work.

Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Conor Grennan, author of the memoir Little Princes, spent eight years at the EastWest Institute (EWI), both in Prague and the EU Office in Brussels, where he served as Deputy Director for the Security and Governance Program.

At the East/West Institute, Conor developed and managed a wide variety of projects focusing on issues such as peace and reconciliation in the Balkans, community development in Central Eastern Europe, and harmonizing anti-trafficking policy at the highest levels government in the European Union and the former Yugoslavia. 

Conor left EWI in 2004 to travel the world and volunteer in Nepal. He would eventually return to Nepal and found Next Generation Nepal, an organization dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families and combating the root causes of child trafficking in rural villages in Nepal. He was based in the capital of Kathmandu until September 2007 where he was the Executive Director of Next Generation Nepal.

Conor now serves on the Board of Next Generation Nepal, together with his wife, Liz. He is a 2010 graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was the President of the Student Body. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and son, Finn, and a soon-to-be baby girl.

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
In the war-torn country of Nepal, Conor Grennan goes expecting to do a year of noble volunteering to pump up his resume and return home with some great stories. Instead, Grennan found not only a country devastated by the recent civil war, but a place filled with orphaned children, poverty, starvation and all that comes along with these life changing experiences. In LITTLE PRINCES, Conor Grennan’s memoir, little did he know that he would find something so different from what he expected and would be forced to return because when he leaves, he leaves a part of him still there…and that part is his heart.

From the time he walked in expecting to see broken, sad children who would be grateful for a pat on the head, to when he left for the first time, the difference was night and day. Very quickly, he became totally immersed in their world. With Nepal having been at war for almost ten years, there was so much corruption in the government that people had to get their own protection from the Maoist guerrillas. Families tried but were finding it so hard to just care for their children as well as hide them lest they be taken by the guerrillas to be made into soldiers. Out of sheer desperation, they would trust men who promised to educate their children, and they even paid a large fee for this “service“. Little did they know these were the scum of the earth, child traffickers, who would take the children off to Katmandu to be made to beg, or worse yet, be sold into slavery.

Conor learns all this and discovers that these children he has fallen in love with may not even be orphans!  It was all this that brought Conor back. He took 7 children and opened his own shelter upon his return. He later went into the mountains to find the families in order to try and reunite them. LITTLE PRINCES will stay with you a long time. You will find out how many children Conor reunites with their families, as well as how many more need his help. Next Generation Nepal is the non-profit organization that Conor created and runs to help these children by opening a new home and still doing similar things today. LITTLE PRINCES is a book you won’t want to end or put down as you become involved in the lives of these children and get to see how one man CAN make a difference, can you? 

GIVEAWAY

  

THANKS TO CHELSEY AND THE GREAT

FOLKS AT HARPER COLLINS, I HAVE

5, YES, FIVE!!!!, COPIES OF THIS BEST

SELLING BOOK TO GIVE AWAY! I KNOW

YOU WILL WANT TO WIN, SO HERE'S HOW!

--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOU READ ABOVE AND SAW IN THE VIDEO THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK AND LEAVE A LINK THAT I CAN FOLLOW

+1 MORE ENTRY: GO TO CONOR GRENNAN'S BLOG HERE AND COMMENT ON SOMETHING INTERESTING YOU FIND THERE.

+1 MORE ENTRY:CHECK OUT THE HARPER COLLINS WEBSITE AND CONOR'S PHOTO ALBUM BY GOING HERE. COMMENT ON ONE OF THE PHOTOS THAT YOU FOUND INTERESTING

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, MARCH 22!

 GOOD LUCK!