Book Review: The Rent Collector

 

 The Rent Collector

Adapted for Young Readers from the Best-Selling Novel

by Camron Wright

Pub Date 05 Apr 2022

 Shadow Mountain Publishing,  Shadow Mountain

 Middle Grade  |  Teens & YA 

I am reviewing a copy of The Rent Collector through Shadow Mountain Publishing and Netgalley:

Sang Ly lives at Cambodia’s city dump and is grateful she can help earn a living for her family by sifting through the trash for recyclables and things which can be repaired and sold.  On good days she is able to earn enough to buy food for her family. She needs enough good days so she can pay the rent collector, Sopeap—a grumpy old woman who shows no mercy and who is willing to evict any tenant who can’t pay their rent on time.

When Sang Ly can’t earn enough money to pay the rent for a month she fears her family will have to leave the dump and their shanty home a place where her only possessions can be carried in two hands.  What she doesn’t know is a discarded children’s book found among the mounds of trash would save her. When Sopeap sees the book lying on Sang Ly’s cardboard bed, her mood changes. Sang Ly offers her the book if she is allowed to keep her family at the dump.

Before long an unlikely friendship develops between the two women, and Sang Ly learns that Sopeap knows how to read something Sang Ly has always wanted to learn. Being able to read could transform Sang Ly’s world beyond the predictable confines of the dump and lead to a future with possibilities and hope.

But the rent collector has a secret and tragic past, one that will not be easy for Sang Ly to navigate. With the help of her supportive husband, Ki Lim, and a helpful and humorous boy, Lucky Fat, Sang Ly embarks on a life-changing journey to give her young son, Nisay, a better life and future.

I give The Rent Collector five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!