Gladys Kalibbala is a force to be reckoned with. Her weekly newspaper column highlights the lost and abandoned children in Uganda's capital, Kampala, in the hope that the publicity will help locate their families. Haunted by the children who go unclaimed, she uses all of her contacts and meager funds to assist as many as she can, trying to be a constant and stabilizing adult presence in their lives. Filmmaker Yu focuses on the personal narratives of Kalibbala and the children, enriching her account with vivid details and extensive dialogue. This tight focus leads to a compelling, page-turning read, but no contextual information is provided, not even further information for those interested in contributing to Kalibbala's work. Yu's evenhanded narrative reveals the balance between bighearted Kalibbala's struggles with a sometimes-uncaring system and the support the children receive from police and her own triumphs. This is a powerful and inspiring tale of how one woman can make a tremendous difference in her community.--Rothschild, Jennifer Copyright 2018 Booklist

This compassionate portrait of Gladys Kalibbala, a Ugandan journalist in the capital city of Kampala, presents an extended look at a woman wired for altruism and forgiveness. Yu, a debut author and documentary filmmaker, covers four years of Kalibbala's work profiling homeless children in "Lost and Abandoned," her Sunday column for a national newspaper. The stories are heart-wrenching, variously involving AIDS, addiction, abuse, and grinding poverty. Kalibbala emerges as a generous soul and fierce advocate, reconnecting the children with family members, getting them into schools, and even setting up a small farm outside the city to raise funds and provide some children with a place to stay. Her personality and implacable determination mark every anecdote, most of which radiate an essential optimism even when the ending is not unqualifiedly happy. This is deeply researched personal journalism, but the focus is so close that a broader context-whether of Uganda's history, the African AIDS crisis, or the struggles of developing countries in general-rarely comes through. Yu's intense close-up on her charismatic heroine results in an inspirational narrative but neglects that story's dense, complicated background. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

An Academy Award-winning filmmaker makes her literary debut with the stunning account of Gladys Kalibbala, who has devoted herself to rescuing lost children in Uganda.Yu, who met her subject while working on a documentary about population issues and spent some time over the past few years shadowing her, provides a richly detailed account of this remarkable woman. Kalibbala has a feature column in the Kampala newspaper New Vision, in which she tries to reunite lost and/or abandoned children with their familiesor to place the youngsters in settings where they will have a chance. The author delivers a moving collection of cases that have confronted Kalibbala, some of which have produced remarkable success and others, not so much. All of the stories have an immediacy because Yu has included generous amounts of dialogue and local color, all indicating the author's observational skills and attention to details. Kalibbala emerges as a magnetic personality with a huge heart and boundless spirit, a strong faith in human beings (a faith that her clients sometimes betray), and a tongue she sometimes wields like an edged blade against those who lie to her. Many of the cases are enormously complexnone more so than the one that consumes seven chapters, the story of a boy whose identity keeps unfolding with increasing complexity as the narrative continues. (Yu gives us a break after a few chapters of his story and then returns to him.) There are also some wrenching accounts of betrayal, especially the case of a boy Kalibbala rescued who then stole from heras did a family member. Wrenching, too, is the case of the autistic boy for whom Kalibbala struggles continually to find the right setting, "a place that could provide both freedom and constant supervision."An eloquent affirmation of the vast capacity of the human heart. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A single mom without a college degree boldly walks into a newspaper office, asks for a job as a reporter, and gets it. This is the story of that woman: Gladys -Kalibbaba, a successful human-interest reporter for the New Vision newspaper in Uganda. Her column, Lost and Abandoned, focuses on adrift children in Uganda's urban centers, with the goal of reuniting them with their parents. Impatient for happy endings, Kalibbaba frequently takes matters into her own hands and finds a home and schooling for children until their families can be located. Academy Award-winning director Yu first profiled Kalibbaba in the documentary Misconception (2014). In her first book, Yu shares the stories of over a dozen children rescued by Kalibbaba and her network of supporters. She then connects these stories to larger societal issues such as women's rights, family planning, health care, education, and job training. VERDICT This heartfelt book should be on a list of the best uplifting true stories; readers looking for inspiring narrative nonfiction or insight into life in other countries and cultures will thoroughly enjoy.-Beth Dalton, Littleton, CO © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.