Frankly speaking, I think this book(The Orphans of Shao) is qualified to be considered as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. The book is bold and candid exposure of the despicable corruption, unlawfulness, cold-bloodedness, cruelty to the underprivileged people, the insatiable greed for money, especially in the remote small cities and villages. The book tells how so many middle and low level Communist officials think “they are the law”, and they can do whatsoever they like to get profits from their illegal enforcement of the “One-child Policy” because the top officials in the central government agencies in Beijing have always been busy with their own businesses and preoccupied with efforts that may help them climb the political ladder. The central government officials simply ignored the cries and appeals of the underpreviliged poor people who are usually less educated and less informed. When the author, a young investigative reporter, first heard stories of infants or small children being seized by officials and sent to the government-run orphanaged. He did not start digging up the truth. As he heard more and more stories about similar stories told by the victims, he set out to dig up and verifiy the truth of the stories. The author even built up contacts with foreigners who provided many useful leads enabling the author to find out the systematic tricks used by the Communist officials to sell orphans to foreign adopters. According to this book, selling Chinese orphans to foreign adopters, by the Communist officials, is “big lucrative business”. The book even cited many news reports made by international newspapers such as the New York Times about the doubtful adoption of “Chinese orphans”. According to the book, many of the “orphans” were not orphans. Instead, these orphans had been robbed away from their parents on the accusation that the orphans were born against the “One-child Policy”. Many parents of these orphans have been trying very hard to get back their children, but in vain. Because these orphans had been adopted by foreign pare1nts. A father had been trying for many years to get back his daughter only found out that his daughter was adopted by an American family. The photograph of his daughter, clad in very beautiful silk Chinese style dress, was published on the New York Times. If you want to know the real China, the book is for you.