The Message of the Story

The message of "Lost Spring" is a call to conscience. By showing us real children whose childhoods have been destroyed, Anees Jung urges society to recognise the injustice of child labour and to end it. She wants the reader to see that every child, however poor, has a right to the "spring" of life — to schooling, to play, to dignity and to the chance of a better future — and that this right is being crushed by poverty and by a system of moneylenders, middlemen and corrupt officials who profit from keeping the poor powerless. …