Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC.

I read this after reading North to Paradise, because...masochism?

A devastating look at the lives of the children of Lusaka, Zambia, whose lives are filled with all sorts of brutality. This had the potential of being too Clancy-esque, in that the informational pieces could have been dry enough to set fire to your bookshelf, but that was not the case as the writing was exceptionally captivating.

This book is brutal to read, and as a parent, it was doubly so. Although it is non-fiction, it reads like a fiction novel of the most devastating sort - a murder mystery of the most heartbreaking sort - a child. Even more so as he is dumped in a landfill as though burning, bright life never ran through his veins.

The point of views of different children and what they endure, as well as the hope they still have despite the odds, made this a heart wrenching but beautiful story. A most visceral reminder for those of us who have never been to places like Lusaka that there are lives we cannot imagine, travesties we can never understand, and hope and dreams beyond what we normally reach for.

This book is nothing short of a dedicated miracle.

Over a period of years, the co-authors, a graduate student and a team of four former street children lived and worked in the vast slums of Zambia’s capital city, getting to know a cross section of the population, taking hundreds of pages of notes and over a thousand hours of recordings.

When a young boy, who became known as the Ho Ho Kid, was found murdered at the city dump, the team dedicated their efforts to following the investigation in real time and discovered a connection to many of the children they were already in contact with.

Lusabilo, a self-titled “chief” and waste picker at the dump finds the Ho Ho Kid’s body and is forced to assist the police in their investigation. Along the way, he is led to Moonga, a recent arrival who turns to begging, gets hooked on sniffing glue and dreams of going to school; Timo, an ambitious and ruthless gang leader; and Kapula, an exhausted brothel worker who is saving to get out.

The connections between these four kids, who each eke out a brutal existence, is told unflinchingly, unsentimentally, yet with emotion and compassion.

Knowing they wanted to reach the wider public, to tell a very specific story that would humanize these individuals, rather than perpetuate the tropes or appeal only to a small circle of insider professionals, Lockhart and Chama cowrote these kids’ stories as a work of narrative non-fiction.

I felt a stabbing pain at how every one of these kids had been abandoned by family and society, left to survive on their own in unimaginably unforgiving conditions. And every time I felt compelled to DO SOMETHING, the authors reminded me how well-meaning but utterly ineffectual foreign “aid” often is.

Lockhart, an American medical anthropologist who has worked in Africa for decades, and Chama, a Zambian social worker who himself was a street child, hold nothing back. They expose what seems to be an unsolvable tragedy of poverty and corruption, helped little or even made worse by Western notions of “development.”

And yet they present a story that is ultimately one of hope.

In their preface, they say, “If you were to ask us what we hope you learn from this book, we would say we hope you learn a little bit about the day-to-day lives and realities of street children and a great deal about the power of the smallest good.”

Walking the bowl –offering what little you can to another– is at the heart of this story. It’s a tale the Outreacher shares with every kid in the slums and with the White Man.

Toward the end of the book, Kapula tells the Outreacher, “I wonder how different things would be if everyone did the small things you do for us every day. Even if they only did one thing in their whole lives, especially if that one thing was passed on to others—like in your story. Myself, I think it would be a very different world.”

Myself, so do I.

This book achieved its aim. I learned a little about others and a lot about how I can live a more powerful life. I was reminded that I don’t have to go to Africa. I don’t have to change the whole world. All I have to do is offer a simple kindness to another, right where I am, right here, consciously, whenever I can.

Read this book because it’s good for you, for us, for humanity. Read it because it’s beautiful. Deep. Impactful. Necessary.

And walk the bowl. Please, may we all walk the bowl.

"A single suffering child on the streets is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

The investigative team consisted of authors "Chama, a Black Zambian and former street child turned social worker...and Lockhart, a white American and trained anthropologist...". Rounding out the team were a graduate student and five former street children. Several years of careful planning were involved in developing an "unprecedented level of trust among...a wide cross section of children." The team was "a sustained presence...both night and day...in order to follow the story in real time...". Through the writing style of narrative non-fiction, the authors conveyed the voices and stories of the street children themselves. The tome's main focus was on the lives of four street children, in present day Zambia, and coalesced around the murder of ten year old Ho Ho Kid, whose body was discovered in a garbage dump.

"They may have been the lowest of the low, but they were a community." Lusabilo, a "waste picker" was quasi-leader of the Chunga Dump scavenger kids. His gang ran after garbage trucks trying to be first to pick through the contents brought to the Chunga Dump. "Very little of what they did was gang-like...a loosely organized guild...bound together...[by] bare necessity...mostly from dawn to dusk...shift, sort and collect...". Lusabilo was the one who discovered Ho Ho Kid's half buried body. He had the feeling "that the Ho Ho Kid was about to become a bigger and more complicated problem...".

After Timo's parents died, "the extended family- the famed safety net of Africa failed him...so like many kids...he was forced out onto the streets among Lusaka's mushrooming population of street children." He aspired to be a drug courier for one of the most powerful drug barons.

Kapula, a brothel worker, was Timo's "wife". "Most girls had little choice but to accept the deal given-the obvious protection it afforded." Kapula felt she was always being "watched, ogled, inspected...Every girl was called a 'vegetable' because it perfectly conveyed how little they were worth."

Mooga was "a solitary village boy...with large inquisitive eyes...a perfect mark for cheats, thieves and con artists..." Moonga had dreams of attending school. He had worked with a shabby group of underage rock crushers. In Lusaka now, waiting at the bus terminal for an uncle who never showed, he was befriended then robbed by a boy his own age. Moonga received no help from the security guards at the bus terminal. "There was no way he could survive alone out here; he needed others. Connections were everything."

"Walking the Bowl: A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka by Chris Lockhart and Daniel Mulilo Chama is a true life journey into the underbelly and into the tunnels occupied by the street children of Lusaka. Author Chama, a social worker, identified as "Outreacher", tries within the scope of his interactions with the children, to offer charity and kindness through his often repeated story of "paying it forward"... small acts of kindness, passed on to others. This excellent, informative, heart-wrenching read is highly recommended.

Thank you Harlequin Trade Publishing/Hanover Square Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

WALKING THE BOWL combines a suspenseful narrative with in-depth reporting and research of many years to create a vivid, brutal, and cruelly beautiful portrait of the life of Lusaka's street children and one of their deaths. The authors do an excellent job of respecting their subject's lives and engendering sympathy in the reader - even for those children who commit crimes and violence in order to survive.

A definite recommendation for those who enjoyed BEYOND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS.

This is a great book that provides a look into the lives of street children in Lusaka. It is a narrative nonfiction, so its formatting is a bit different from other works of nonfiction. The story it tells is one that is both heartbreaking and provides some hope. This book has come from years of fieldwork that was assembled in this book in a great fashion to tell the story of the street children. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.

I would like to thank Hanover Sqaure Press for providing me with an ARC.

An exceptionally written piece of narrative nonfiction that takes readers into the heart and soul of what life is like for the street kids of Lusaka and elsewhere. A meaningful, disheartening, and thought-provoking read that will stick with readers long after finishing.

Often times research reports of an anthropological nature are filled with statistics and often are very dry readings of the subject. When you engulf yourself in this novel, you can throw that thought out the window. This is the most important eye opening and readable book that I have ever read about the plight of street children, which can be extrapolated to other street children in the world. The hand that they were dealt is harrowing where survival by any means possible is the ultimate game. Drug use, police corruption and brutality, murder, rape, and physical and mental abuse are a part of everyday life. During a five year study of kids on the street in Zambia, this team have given us a gift with a narrative nonfiction study immersing the reader into these kids' daily lives. It is extraordinary, but not for the faint of heart. The ugliness and the pain that these children suffer is on full display. The story begins with the discovery of a dead 10 year old found in the dumps. Many peoples' livelihood depend on trash picking so that they can resell the items( like plastic) to enable them a pittance to live on. The panicky child, Lusabilo, who discovered the disfigured child is afraid that the police will predetermine that he is responsible. As Lusabilo tries to uncover the truth other children are brought into the narrative whose lives intersect with Lusabillo and the dead child. Their vividly woven and immersive stories just squeeze your heart while also depicting the small amounts of humanity, concern and goodness that bring a measure of faith and hope to their lives.Learning the concept of paying it forward was integral to dwelling on their aspirations for their lives.
I cannot exclaim enough about this book. The characters were achingly alive and lit up memories for me. While in Bangladesh I met 3 street children ages 7-12 who were living under a tiny plastic blue tarp on the street near our hotel. I spent many hours talking with them as the eldest girl had picked up English from tourists. Much of what we discussed were issues quite similar to the narrative in the book. India, Thailand and other third world countries I have been fortunate to visit have the same deeply transporting stories. I couldn't but drink deeply from this book while I hurt, hurt, hurt.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I started this book, and I was blown away. The story of these children in Zambia was heartbreaking, but the writing really brought it to life. An eye opener into the lives of street children, and hard to stop thinking about when finished.

Written in vivid and gripping detail that often shocks and horrifies, and interspersed with moments of compassion that come at incredibly key moments for core characters, “Walking the Bowl” reads like a finely crafted contemporary novel. So considering that this book is in fact a work of narrative nonfiction….well, it still almost leaves me at a loss for words when I try to wrap my mind around it. The story that Daniel Mulilo Chama and Chris Lockheart have to share with readers as a result of several years of fieldwork performed in sprawling Lusaka is nothing short of incredible. I genuinely don’t think I could possibly ask for a work that could more effectively reveal a glimpse at how the street children of Lusaka, and millions of street children like them worldwide, lead lives so almost stunningly packed with grinding poverty, widespread drug use, and rampant physical and sexual violence, amongst other hazards. Nor could I ask for a work that could more successfully show just how far a precious act of kindness can go in changing the lives of any one of these often nameless millions living on the margins of the margins. Simply put, it's simultaneously one of the most gripping and eye-opening books that I have had the good opportunity to read this year, and will be quick to recommend it whenever the chance arises.