Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

It’s simply amazing what goes on in the minds of young people today. They are ultimately deep thinkers, full of profound ideas and thoughts that will one day transform the world. Perhaps their ideas and thoughts are already transforming the world, as highlighted in 15 Years of KidSpirit by Global Youth Contributors. Mac Fabens writes about the importance of the people around you, particularly your friends: “Friends are, in essence, role models. Each friend of mine is someone with a quality I admire and wish I had.” Abigail Webster also writes about friends: “When making friends, I don’t consider whether the friendship will last forever; I simply make the most of the time I have with them.” Raavee Tripathi writes, “Just as pieces of carbon, under significant pressure and the right amount of time, reveal a diamond, similarly, our progress from who we used to be to a greater us is a universal phenomenon. We are alive by the virtue of our triumphs over our struggles – it is about the nature of just how transient life truly is.” These are only a few snippets of the powerful thinking of young people.

Global Youth Contributors have put together an anthology of articles, short stories, poetry, reviews, and artwork from 11 to 17-year-olds around the world. The result, 15 Years of KidSpirit, not only promotes the youth-led community-building power of KidSpirit but also challenges these young people to consider some of the big questions we all face in life today. This collection of over thirty young writers and artists represents young people from countries including the United States, Australia, Pakistan, India, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, China, Haiti, Ukraine, and Paraguay. The stories and poems are interspersed with drawings and paintings highlighting the visual arts that complement the literary arts. This is a remarkable achievement and presentation that will open the minds of all people around the world, not just the young.