Book excerpt: In October 1996, thirty Ugandan schoolgirls were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and disappeared into the bush of Northern Uganda. The girls were raped and tortured before being forced to become child soldiers and sex slaves. This was only one out of thousands of child kidnappings by merciless madman and rebel leader Joseph Kony. But for the battered civilians terrorized by rebel warfare and neglected by corrupt government, this was the breaking point. Something had to be done—the world needed to know and their girls needed to be brought home. Kathy Cook's one-on-one interviews with the surviving girls and their mothers make their fear, frustration, and suffering overwhelmingly real. With exceptional insight gained from on-location research, Cook gives us an authoritative account of how concerned parents, interfaith groups, politicians from Canada and the United States, and NGOs banded together in a struggle to rescue the girls and to mobilize a people, their country, and a global community. An emotionally charged retelling of a heartbreaking true story, Stolen Angels reminds us of the importance of faith, strength, and determination in the face of adversity.