Never Stop Walking Was Great!

Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World, by Christina Rickardsson, is an outstanding book.  It is a story that everybody with a heart should read.  This book may even cause you to see the world in a different light.

Never Stop Walking is the true story of a girl who grew up on the streets in Brazil and was later adopted by a family in Sweden.  In a way, it is a literal rags-to-riches tale.

Christina’s telling of her childhood growing up, first in caves, then in the slums of São Paulo, is fascinating.  She witnesses horrors that most first-world adults couldn’t even imagine.  In order to survive, she witnessed (and caused) violence, endured extreme hunger, and was treated worse than most people treat animals.  After she is adopted, she has to deal with fitting in with people that have no clue what she’s been through.  Her story ends as an adult, returning home to find out the truth about her family and what actually happened.

Never Stop Walking is a story that should make you think.  What Christina went through as a girl is still happening today.  There are still desperately impoverished children in Brazil, even today.  There are places in the world, like Venezuela, that are becoming more and more like the world of this story.  People are being displaced from their homes through war and terrorist activity; what are their lives like?

This book is not one of despair, however.  Never Stop Walking is, above all, a story about how love can carry people through even the most difficult of situations.  The love of Christina’s friends, of her mother, and even from the occasional caring adult, kept her from being completely torn up and destroyed, even after all that she had been through.  Most of us will probably never have to worry about being rounded up and shot by the police, or will have to fight over scraps of food after not eating for days, but when we do go through difficult times, the people around us can help us through.  We can care for others and help them through their difficult times.

Never Stop Walking is a book that made me feel thankful.  Bad things happen to everybody, but if you’re reading this book review, you probably will never have to go through what people living on the streets of Brazil go through every day.  I enjoyed reading this story, and I feel like I am a better person because I read it.  I hope you like it as well.