Kelsey on Kelsey & an offer to all my readers

With a few co-authors in North Carolina</b>

(With a few co-authors in North Carolina)

Nope, this isn’t me talking about myself. Below the cut you’ll find excerpts of a report a girl named Kelsey did on Where Am I Wearing? for her high school Social Studies class.

WAIW has found its way into classrooms in middle schools and graduate-level courses, into book reports and theses, into the hands of students who are studying globalization for the first time and professors who’ve studied it their entire lives.

It’s fun to write something and then have so many people tell you what it meant to them or how they saw it. They bring their own beliefs, world-views, and global perspectives into the discussion. Every reader is indeed my co-author.

AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE

I owe them all. If I divvied up my advance or royalties, everyone might get enough to buy a really, really cheap cup of coffee. So here’s an offer: If you’ve read Where Am I Wearing? and you are passing through Muncie, Indiana, I’ll totally meet you for cup of coffee and we can talk about the next book we’ll work on together.

Deal?


Where am I Wearing? Book Review by Kelsey (High School Student)
August 11th, 2010

The title of the Geography book I chose is called Where Am I Wearing?.

Kelsey travels to Bangladesh, where he goes undercover as an underwear buyer. This trip is a success and he meets lots of interesting people, such as the factory owners, the workers, the people in the village, and even a formal supermodel! The supermodel was Bibi Russell. Bibi moved back to Bangladesh (her home country) in 1994. Bibi helps Bangladesh EXTREMELY much, she helps the local weavers know what’s in style and she gives them access to the global market. [KT Note: I always try to work a supermodel into a story when possible.]

Part 3 Cambodia (Levi’s Jeans):

When you don’t have much, family is everything, The following statement describes the life of the workers that make our Levi’s jeans in Cambodia.

After visiting Li Xin, and before leaving China, Kelsey goes to the Chinese Wal-Mart. It’s like a section of a mall, everything is smaller: the rows, the items (in quantities), and also the amount of cars in the parking lot. However, they do have live alligators and snakes….

Kelsey gets married! And where does he go to visit on his honeymoon of course, the factory where his shorts were made! Perry, New York is where his shorts were made, it’s sorta on their way to Niagara Falls, his wife, Annie doesn’t seem to mind though. He meets the EXACT person who made his shorts, and visited the exact factory where they were made. I consider this an extremely great success!

The main point that the author would like to get across to the reader is when it comes to clothing, others make it, and we have it made.

Through our clothes we think about folks around the world.

Kelsey examines his own place in the global economy and spends some time asking workers about where they see themselves.

The goal of the book is to have the readers question their own place in the consumer/producer relationship.

Technology has made it easier for businesses to source from around the world, which makes it easier to break bonds with a factory and move production to another factory. Many brands source from multiple countries and multiple factories.

What kind of consumer/global citizen do you want to be.

I liked Where Am I Wearing? very much because it taught me a lot about clothes, how they are made, and about the lives of the people who make them. Also, now whenever I put on a piece of clothing I feel that it is my duty to look at the tag and see where it was made, I also wonder about the lives of the people who made them.

The book was really good in my opinion, the only thing I might have changed is leaving out some of things about the government that went over my head. But, then again this book wasn’t written necessarily written for people my age, so it’s not the author’s fault.

[KT: Well done Kelsey! When I was 14 I was busy playing TECMO bowl, shooting myself with a BB gun, and/or wrecking our go-kart.]

 
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