Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. According to the United Nations, child labor is defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.” How does child labor affect the well-being of children, families, and citizens of a country? What are some of the devastating effects of child labor?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider the novel’s central conflict of child labor and an associated theme: The Economic Impact of Forced Child Labor. Child labor, which is usually associated with low or unpaid work of children for exploitative means in the global commodity market, is a common source of modern slavery that persists in contemporary society, often in economies with high rates of corruption and insecure systems of justice. D’Adamo’s novel focuses on the negative repercussions of child labor through the eyes of young workers in Pakistan’s carpet industry, most of whom are sold into “bonded slavery” in order to pay off their family's debts; these systems are often skewed, making it difficult for the debtors to pay the creditors.