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The Bitter Side of Sweet
The Bitter Side of Sweet
The Bitter Side of Sweet
Audiobook9 hours

The Bitter Side of Sweet

Written by Tara Sullivan

Narrated by J.D. Jackson

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou, can chop down in a day. This number is very important. The higher the number the safer they are because the bosses won't beat them. The higher the number the closer they are to paying off their debt and returning home to Moke and Auntie. Maybe. The problem is, Amadou doesn't know how much he and Seydou owe, and the bosses won't tell him. The boys only wanted to make some money during the dry season to help their impoverished family. Instead they were tricked into forced labor on a plantation in the Ivory Coast. With no hope of escape, all they can do is try their best to stay alive-until Khadija comes into their lives.

She's the first girl who's ever come to camp, and she's a wild thing. She fights bravely every day, attempting escape again and again, reminding Amadou what it means to be free. But finally, the bosses break her, and what happens next to the brother he has always tried to protect almost breaks Amadou. The old impulse to run is suddenly awakened. The three band together as family and try just once more to escape.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 23, 2016
ISBN9781515971139
The Bitter Side of Sweet

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Reviews for The Bitter Side of Sweet

Rating: 4.2457628000000005 out of 5 stars
4/5

59 ratings12 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Such an impactful read. You immediately begin to feel the emotions of Amadou and how he makes every decision based on his chances of survival, counting the cost with each step. So many children in this world have the same experience as him. Please read it and act on it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a fictional story that helped spotlight the terror enslaved children go through in African countries after getting torn from their families. While somewhat unrealistic, Sullivan gave the characters depth and made them relatable to people outside allowing them to peek into another world.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan is a brutal glimpse into the 'dark side of chocolate' that graphically reveals how children are sold and kidnapped into slavery. The market chain, much like poaching syndicates, mean that big business and the middlemen are the only ones to profit while the farmers get next to nothing, so are forced to coerce children into free labour. These ignorant children are trafficed from organised crime rings in neighbouring countries; beaten instead of motivated; live in squalour; have no opportunity for schooling; and have no way of escape.According to UNICEF and the Harkin-Engel Protocol, labour laws, minimum age requirements and mandatory public schooling do exist to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in chocolate production, but there is very little evidence of real change happening. The chocolate companies value a low international price for chocolate and claim that they have nothing to do with the the bands of criminals selling children into slavery.But there is another way: one where the consumer can influence change for the better; where social and environmental aspects are more in line with profits; where small farmers can receive a fair wage for their crops; and ultimately become proud land owners; and are empowered to become end-product producers, trading their chocolate direct to the consumers. Even if ethical chocolate costs more, we seriously need to rethink the cost of cheap chocolate.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In The Bitter Side of Sweet, author Tara Sullivan tells the story of three children who escape virtual slavery as they break away from the Ivory Coast cacao farm where they have been forced to work. Amadou and his younger brother, Seydou have been in captivity for two years but the newcomer, a female, Khadija helps to provide the spark that ignites Amadou to get them all away safely.This is a disturbing story, set as it is in modern times. Countless children are being held in these farms, providing cheap labor in order to provide an ingredient that the rest of the world considers a treat. The two boys were tricked into coming to the farm, they were told it was seasonal work, but once there, they were forced into meeting quotas, being beaten, deprived food and locked into a shed every night.The Bitter Side of Sweet is an excellent YA survival story. This emotional story imparts a lot of facts about the harvesting and processing of chocolate without interrupting the flow of the narrative. It certainly makes one think about the cost of this indulgence. The Bitter Side of Sweet is a fast moving, interesting and moving story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was amazed to find that it is classed as a children's novel or YA for ages 12 and up. I was hesitant to read The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, which is an adult novel because I thought it would be too graphic. It is not, but this supposed YA novel is. Bitter is about forced child labor in the cacao farms in The Ivory Coast in Africa. The main characters are children - 15-year-old Amadou, his eight-year-old brother, Seydou, and the wild 13-year-old girl, Khadija who is dropped into their midst. Sullivan doesn't hold back much when recounting the starvation, beatings, and inhumane punishment these children are subjected to. I think this is too strong a book for most children. It is, however, very well written and very realistic in discussing poverty, classism, and inhumanity. She does a great job of characterizing these children, their coping mechanisms, defeatism, and the willingness to fight.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tara Sullivan does it again. I loved Golden Boy and was excited to read The Bitter Side Sweet. She unfolds a gripping story involving child labor in the Ivory Coast. Sullivan has a gift for taking a human rights issue and telling it through the eyes of children. The novel is never boring, tugs at your heart, and leaves you thinking long after the last page. It's great book for teens as well as adults.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amadou & Seydou are brothers. They are 15 & 8. Due to drought and famine in Mali they are forced to leave home and find work. Trusting a bus driver in their home town, they go to a cacao farm where they believe they will be able to earn money for their family harvesting the crop. That was two years ago. They have realized that they are now caught in a cruel work of human slave labor where they are forced to work and bring in their quota each day or they face brutal beatings and mistreatment by the bosses. Amadou does his best to protect his younger brother by doing more work and taking the beatings if they do not meet the quota. One day a truck shows up with only one passenger which is very rare & strange. To make it even more strange the one passenger is a female with a fiery personality. Her name is Khadija and Amadou calls her Wildcat due to her fiery temperament. When Khadija tricks Seydou and tries to escape, once again Amadou takes the beating for his brother. But Amadou & Khadija form a friendship as events unfold and ultimately end up escaping and making it back to her mother. Her mother was writing an article about human trafficking and that's why Khadija was kidnapped. Great action based on actual events in our world today. Read it in a day and enjoyed it while learning about the greed of the corporate world.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Activist-oriented youth won't look at their favorite chocolates in the same way again, and they may be inspired to action by this compelling and suspenseful work. Fifteen-year-old Amadou and his little brother left their struggling household in Mali to find work. They ended up working as slaves on a cacao farm with other boys. All are unpaid, overworked, beaten and locked into their sleeping hut to prevent escape. When a girl Khadijah is unexpectedly dumped at the farm, her presence sets in motion a chain of events that could mean freedom for Amadou and Seydou. Sullivan's vivid narrative inspires empathy for the very real issue of child labor and slavery. Amadou is bitter and angry about his fate and the reluctant growth of his trust in others evolves in a believable way. Backwater includes an author's note expanding on the issue of cacao farms and child slavery, plus online resources.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The dark underbelly of the chocolate industry, an indulgence many of us can't live without. Well, personally I can, I'm more into salty snacks, seems like you are either one or the other. Anyway apparently 40% of the cocoa pods are harvested on the Ivory coast of Africa, large farms and harvested by children in slave conditions. This is the story of three of them. Amadou is 13, his brother Seydou only six when they leave their home in Mali to, work on one such farm. They expect to get paid, make money to send home to their impoverished family. Instead they find themselves unpaid, kept as prisoners, barely fed, worked on a quota system, severely beaten for an infraction. A young girl Khadja, will be brought to the farm, the first time a girl has been brought here to work, but she is different and she and an terrible accident that sSeydou suffers will change everything.Written in a straightforward, sometimes simplistic manner, chronologically told this is a story that is at times hard to read. Anytime children are involved, mistreated it is difficult. So eye opening, informative, once one knows it is hard to not know. The author discusses the chocolate industry further in her author's note at books end as well as what we can do to end this horrible situation the children of the Ivory Coast and elsewhere find themselves.ARC from Netgalley.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    THE BITTER SIDE OF SWEET by Tara SullivanThis middle school novel tells the story of three children caught in the cacao industry in the Ivory Coast. Although hard to read because of the brutal treatment of the children, the book tells a worthwhile story. The three children of the story are two boys mislead to believe they would be working only for a season for wages. Instead they were neither paid nor allowed to leave. They worked under very harsh primitive conditions. The third child was a girl kidnapped and forced to work the cacao fields because her mother, a journalist, was exposing the slave-like conditions of the workers. The story of the children’s eventual escape is both heartbreaking and thrilling.The afterword offers a way to affect the harvesting of the cacao pods and the mistreatment of the children.Not recommended for tender hearted , younger children. 5 of 5 stars
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Amadou is a counter of important things, mostly he counts how many pods he and his brother manages to harvest each day. It matters because if their bags aren't full enough with cacao pods a beating will follow. Amadou is always looking out for his younger brother, Seydou. The boys came from Mali to the Ivory Coast to work. But the money for their work never follows and the boys are stuck in slavery. When Khadija arrives it is unusual as there are no girls at the farm. She's feisty, but Amadou can see the bosses try to take her spirit. After Seydou is seriously injured, Amadou realizes that the three of them need to escape to try to survive. The book is heavy. While there is rape, the word is never mentioned and this scene might go over the heads of younger readers. But reading about Seydou suffering injury, nearly dying, and then having part of his arm hacked off is disturbing. As is the idea that so much of the chocolate we eat comes from the exploitation and labor of so many kids in the Ivory Coast.Khadija's mom happens to be a reporter working on an expose of the chocolate industry. It gets a little didactic at moments. But reading this book is going to help me change my behavior!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Amadou and his younger brother Seydou, left their home and family in Mali two years ago to work and earn money. Now Amadou is 15, Seydou is 8, and they have spent the last two years as slave labor on a cacao plantation. When a girl is suddenly dropped off on the plantation, Amadou finds himself helping he, and helping himself and his brother in the process.