Review: The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India by Shelley Seale
The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India is said to be the factual written version of the hit film Slumdog Millionaire.
Money and riches that they’ll never be able to reach surround the children in orphanages and throughout the streets and slums of India. There are more than a million people living on a mere 500 acres of land in a well-known slum of Mumbai called Dharavi. The slums are packed with hungry children that come from impoverished families. The children, as well as the adults of these slums, lack education. They look around at the high-rise buildings knowing that they’ll never have one ounce of the riches of the world.
Author, Shelley Seale, takes us on an emotional journey, showing us the lives of children living in poverty, toiling as child laborers, and those struck with diseases such as AIDS. In the modern world, children are subconsciously taught to take for granted many basic things. Children in the slums of India truly see some of these basic things as privileges and luxuries.
Being a native Indian and having seen the slums for myself, I found The Weight of Silence very difficult to read at times. However, I also found myself feeling hope that there are people in this world who will use their wealth to help the disadvantaged. This book is likely to evoke feelings of heartbreak and tears of sadness, but is ultimately one of hope.
For more information, please visit The Weight of Silence Blog and Shelley Seale’s website.
This book was provided free of any obligation by Dog’s Eye View Media. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.
Category: Gift Ideas, Memoirs, Non Fiction, Nonfiction, Travel
This is terrible. It reminds me of that book that I read of the slum near the Bombay airport. I have a friend whose father still lives in India. He has a meager income but he grows a garden in th back of his house and give most to the fresh fruits and vegetables to the poor to eat. My friend’s daughter has a non-profit organization that sells natural skin products and she donates all the proceeds to the poor of India. There are so many problems. The children need food, clothing, housing, education and most of all families.
Carol Wong
This sounds like an amazing book both heart-breaking and heart-warming. It’s so difficult to think about children left without parents, without a home where they are warm & safe. But I believe that childre are resilient, hopeful and mostly happy. If given the chance to shine they wiil. I’m glad that the author, Shelley Seale commented to let us know that her book is ultimately one of hope and the children are inspiring and just need people to listen to them & to see them.
Thank you for writing about & bringing this book to our attention!
~ Amy
Amy recently posted..Sunday Salon 92510
Slumdog millionaire was such an unexpectedly wonderful touching story. If this book touches on that subject/theme is is sure to be a great read. Life can be so different than the middle class existence many of us are used to.
[...] great new review of The Weight of Silence was also published on Luxury Reading. In part the review reads: Author, Shelley Seale, takes us on an emotional journey, showing us the [...]
One of my close girlfriends spent 6 weeks in India last year, and left her heart with the children … She told me about this one little girl that had been playing and giggling and snuggling with her, and then my friend had to leave – the little girl started crying, and the adult who was kinda ‘supervising’ these dozens of kids told my friend to just take the little girl and keep her. As if the little girl had no worth at all. It broke my friend’s heart, and when she told me it tugged at mine too. There are so many many children all over the world, not just in India – though so many seem concentrated there – that just need the basics of life. And love. A lot of Love. It breaks my heart … I’m not sure I *could* read this book – not without crying my eyes and heart out, anyway. ::soft smile::
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fickleinpink, Shelley Seale and Nick Gallicchio, Vera @ LuxuryReading. Vera @ LuxuryReading said: Review: The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India by Shelley Seale: Reviewed by Dim… http://bit.ly/9tjFyC #luxuryreading [...]
Thank you so much for publishing this thoughtful review of my book, and for the comments. I, too, find the poverty and lack of opportunities for millions of children in India to be difficult and heartbreaking. I also hope to get across a message of hope and inspiration in this book, because both India and her children have shown me so much love and joy and acceptance, and I have been moved by their abilities to overcome these challenges and help each other. I wish we all could do the same.
Shelley
Thanks for visiting Shelley!
This is truly heartbreaking, but so important to share. I think it is so important that people remember what is going on all over the world, as well as in our own backyards. There are many hungry, homeless children in America as well, but the media and such don’t seem to concentrate on that. I think no child from any country should go hungry, and it is such a shame that SO MANY are living this way in India. What a horrible thing to live in that type of squalor, with no education or assistance to get out, and have to look at the rich and mighty all around you. it makes me sick to my stomach!
Agreed, Colleen. Both of my parents are in education, and there is SO MUCH of this same kind of poverty in our own backyards, and you’d never know. We’re talking 15 people crammed into one tiny little house without power or water. And no food. And bats in the house. It’s so sad … and it’s so ‘invisible’ …
Maybe if enough people bring it up and make us look, we’ll finally – as a people – SEE the world around us.
I also agree with both of you, but I can at the same time attest from MUCH personal experience that it is also such a completely rewarding, uplifting, joyful experience most of the time, with these children. I also try to get that across in the book. Yes, the subject is a difficult and often sad one. But the book is NOT all sad and depressing! These children showed so much hope and resilience, and they shared so much joy and inspiration with me. That is what I hope to share in this book, not their heartbreak but their hope and their possibilities. I hope people will take that into account. The ONLY way that they will not remain invisible, is if people choose to embrace their stories and hear them – both the difficult and the joyous parts.
Thank you so much for your kind words and your interest in the book and these children.
Shelley
This sounds like an incredibly eye-opening and moving book. Thanks for sharing your review!
What a wonderful book. It is amazing the poverty that exists in India. Another great movie that gives insight into the children of India is Born into Brothels. It is sad to think of all the waste that exists in this country and that there are children going hungry elsewhere.