"As long as I can remember, it was animals,animals. Even before I could talk, I was watching earthworms and things, reading Doctor Doolittle books, wanting to learn the language of animals.

VOA: special.2009.11.18

we are human beings,'". Khalaf says that before working on this book, she never thought much about the death penalty, but she was deeply touched by reading the stories of men who often grew up in broken homes and who,as one inmate says, "became lost souls as children."

VOA: standard.2009.10.21