Shin's Escape

Shin’s Escape

By Will McFarland

Blaine Hardin’s Escape from Camp 14 follows Shin, a young Korean boy who escapes from a brutal North Korean prison camp. Shin was the first North Korean to be born in Camp 14 to successfully escape. Shins parents were among the few prisoners allowed to marry and have a child, but the pressure to survive caused them to neglect him. Since the day he was born Shin was forced to live like an animal. In the camp it is survival of the fittest all they are taught to do is to obey, work and focus on living through each day. In the camps the guards have control over everything any prisoner receives: the amount of food, number of beatings, etc. and the prisoners are treated like slaves, forced to eat minimal amounts of food and preform back breaking work without pay.  At the age of ten Shins mother and Brother plot to escape, Shin finds out and tells a guard but the guard takes the credit, and Shin must watch his mother and brother be murdered before his eyes.

Later Shin gets a job fixing sewing machines. It looks like he will spend his remaining days in the sewing machine shop until a new well-educated prisoner is sent to work with him. Shin is ordered to spy on the new prisoner but they started talking and became great friends, this man is what inspired Shin and made his escape possible. They planned to escape on the night of the New Year. They were supposed to be cutting trees and planned to jump through the fence and escape. There were two problems with this plan: one was that the camp ran so many volts of electricity through its fences, that it would kill a man instantly; and two, there were guards patrolling the fence with automatic weapons in spaced intervals. But they put their plan into action anyway. As they were running up to the fence Shin slipped so his friend jumped through first and was electrocuted. Shin ran up soon after and used the body to clear the fence. Without that man, he would have surely died.

 After his escape, he traveled through China to South Korea, and then to the United States of America, where he lives today. For the first few years Shin had a hard time fitting in. He had to find a job and started working with local human rights groups and today he gives speeches on human rights and his time in the camp to raise awareness about these horrible things.

This was one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone, no matter what genre of book they like. This book has encouraged countless people to join the fight to stop these horrible things from taking place in North Korea, and it is an amazing read. A+