Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different

by Ben Brooks

  Two years after he first saw the commercial, he felt ready. Christian’s family gathered around him and shaved off all his hair. Altogether, he’d managed to grow four ponytails that were each as long as ten caterpillars. The hair was sent away to the Children With Hair Loss charity, and Christian made life a lot happier for several young boys and girls.

  LIONEL MESSI

  (BORN 1987)

  Lionel Messi was eleven when he was diagnosed with a condition called growth hormone deficiency. The condition meant that his body wasn’t growing as fast as it should. To treat it, he needed expensive medicine, but his dad worked in a factory and his mom was a janitor, so they couldn’t afford it.

  Even at that age, Messi showed amazing talent as a soccer player, and a team in his country, Argentina, wanted to sign him. But the team couldn’t pay for his medicine, so he had to turn them down.

  Next, Messi tried out for the Barcelona team, where he impressed the coach so much that they agreed to pay for his treatment. The coach was in such a hurry to sign him and get him healthy, he wrote the contract on the nearest piece of paper: a napkin from the restaurant they were eating in.

  Very quickly, Messi proved himself to be one of the greatest soccer players in history.

  In 2012, he broke the record for the most goals scored in a year. The previous record was eighty-five and had stood for forty years. That year, Messi scored ninety-one.

  When he was asked to move to the English Premier League, he said no. When he was offered more money than any soccer player ever, to join a Russian team, Messi said no to that, too. He still felt loyal to Barcelona, who’d helped him as a child when he needed it most.

  And because he knows how it feels to need help, he now campaigns for the rights of children, runs his own charity, and donates money to hospitals so they can afford to care for young people who need it.

  HARVEY MILK

  (1930–1978)

  Harvey realized he was gay when he was fourteen, but at first he chose not to tell anyone. After school, he joined the navy. Later, he fell in love and moved with his partner to San Francisco, where they opened a camera shop. While working there, Harvey discovered how much he enjoyed helping people with their problems, perhaps because he hadn’t let anyone help him when he needed it most. To carry on helping others, he decided to go into politics.

  He wanted to gain a position on the city council. In the first election, he came in tenth. In the second, seventh. In the third, fourth. And then, finally, Harvey succeeded, becoming the first openly gay elected official in the history of the city.

  Straight away, he got to work. He created programs for minorities, workers, and the elderly. He passed a law that made it illegal for employers or landlords to discriminate based on sexuality. He promoted free public transportation and affordable childcare. He even made it illegal not to clear up your dog’s poo.

  When a law was put forward that would have prevented gay and lesbian teachers from working in schools in California, he put a stop to that.

  On November 27, 1978, an angry, troubled man, who opposed what Harvey stood for, shot and killed him in his office.

  The whole city was distraught.

  Thirty thousand people marched with candles to show how much Harvey had meant to them. He became a symbol for the whole gay-rights movement. In 2009, Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and every year, on May 22, people across America celebrate Harvey Milk Day.

  CAINE MONROY

  (BORN 2002)

  In Los Angeles, school had finished for the summer, and Caine was spending his days at the auto shop where his dad worked. He was nine years old and there wasn’t a lot to do.

  To fill time, Caine started building an arcade. He’d always loved arcades, and now he wanted his own. He built it from the cardboard boxes that stock for the shop arrived in. With scissors and tape, he made machines, stands for prizes, a security system, and even uniforms.

  Caine dreamed of his arcade filling with people. He would offer them four turns for a dollar, or two dollars for a Fun Pass, which would get them five hundred turns. The prizes they’d get for winning would be his toys.

  No customers came. But Caine wouldn’t shut down his arcade.

  On the last day of summer, a filmmaker named Nirvan Mullick came in to buy a new handle for his car. Before he left, he ended up buying a Fun Pass. Nirvan was so entranced by the arcade that he wanted to make a film of it, and of Caine, to let the world know what Caine had been doing.

  When the video went online, it was watched over a million times in the first day.

  Nirvan wanted to use the attention to help Caine. He set up a fund to raise money so that Caine could eventually afford to go to college, and the fund made over $200,000.

  Together, Nirvan and Caine created a website called Imagination.org, which aims to inspire creativity in schools, homes, and communities everywhere. Their mission is to get kids using their imaginations to change the world for the better. By setting challenges and sharing stories, the site has encouraged over a million young people to think creatively and have a lot of fun while doing so.

  JORGE MUÑOZ

  (BORN 1964)

  For over twenty years, Jorge drove children to and from school in New York City. His family was from Colombia, but his mom, Doris, had taken him and his sister, Luz, to America, looking for a new life after their father was killed in an accident.

  One day, after dropping off his bus full of children at school, Jorge spoke with a group of men standing underneath a bridge. The men were immigrants from other countries, just like Jorge. They explained to him that they stood under the bridge every day, shivering in thunderstorms and sweating in heat waves, waiting to be chosen for small jobs so they could make money to send home to their families. They told him they were so poor that they sometimes went days without eating anything at all.

  The next day, when Jorge was getting ready for work, he packed eight extra lunches; he then handed them out to workers waiting under the bridge.

  Some days after that, he passed a food factory at closing time and saw that they were throwing out perfectly good leftovers. He asked the factory workers if he could use them to feed the immigrant workers. The workers said yes.

  With his mom and sister, Jorge bought a freezer so big it filled their living room. Every day, before and after work, the family cooks and hands out hot meals for workers. Most of the money comes from Jorge’s paycheck as a bus driver.

  Since it all began, Jorge and his family have served over 100,000 meals to people in need. They know how it feels to be hungry and homesick in a new country. Some of the people under that bridge may be poor, homeless, and missing their families, but at least they can count on a good, hot meal, thanks to the generosity of Jorge.

  TREVOR NOAH

  (BORN 1984)

  Trevor says he was born a crime. His dad is white, his mom is black, and he comes from South Africa, where any mixing between the two was illegal.

  When his mom was caught in his dad’s building, she was put in jail. If they were outside together, his mom wasn’t allowed to hold his dad’s hand, and his dad would have to walk on the other side of the road.

  So Trevor was raised by his grand-mother and his mother, until his mom married a violent man who terrified Trevor and once shot his mom in the head. Somehow, she survived, and she continued looking after Trevor as best she could.

  School was hard, too, because he felt like he couldn’t fit in with the white kids or the black kids. Trevor also suffered from a lot of painful spots and had to take medicine to get them under control, which had side effects, like making him tired and unhappy.

  His family was so poor they would eat worms. To start the car, they’d roll it down the hill to save petrol. To make money, he played DJ sets in the streets with his friends.

  As he grew up, Trevor decided to make use of everything he’d been through. He wanted to put his experiences into comedy. Even when he talked about the saddest, most
difficult times of his life, he managed to find the funny side. And he took his comedy all over South Africa, sharing his pain and laughter with strangers.

  Trevor’s since moved to America.

  He hosts the biggest American comedy news show and is a famous stand-up comedian. He says he owes it all to his mom’s determination that he would get out of poverty.

  “In my world,” he said, “a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is.”

  TENZING NORGAY

  (1914–1986)

  At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary became the first people in history to reach the top of the world’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest. Above the clouds, surrounded by gigantic glaciers and thrashed by strong winds, Edmund solemnly stuck out his hand for a traditional handshake. Tenzing was so excited, he ignored the hand and dragged Edmund in for a big hug instead.

  Edmund was an explorer from New Zealand who’d had a very privileged upbringing. But Tenzing had started off with nothing in his life. He had been born in the mountains and sold into slavery as a boy. He’d never learned to read. He didn’t even know when his own birthday was.

  Tenzing ran away while he was being forced to work for a rich family, and he reached India, where he fell in love and got married.

  At nineteen, he was chosen to help with his first expedition up Everest. He did so well that whenever other groups from around the world came to try and reach the summit, they would always ask him to help. He knew the mountains better than they did, could carry more than anyone else, and was a lot more used to the ropes, lines, and tents.

  Tenzing helped on many expeditions before attempting the climb with Edmund. After they’d reached the top of Everest together, both became celebrities. It meant Tenzing could afford to buy a house for his family, set up his own adventuring company, and send his kids to universities in America, where they’d get the kind of education he’d never had.

  Since he’d never known his birthday, he decided to give himself one, and he chose May 29: the day he’d reached the top of the world’s tallest mountain.

  RIC O’BARRY

  (BORN 1939)

  Dolphins play catch with each other for fun, use tools to find food, and communicate in their own language. Some people think they’re almost as intelligent as humans.

  Ric used to work for a sea-life center, capturing and training dolphins for entertainment. The dolphins were made to perform on TV and in live shows, where they’d have to jump through hoops, spin through the air, and wave their fins at loud crowds. It was an exciting and glamorous life for Ric. Celebrities often came to visit and he was earning a lot of money.

  One day, one of the dolphins Ric was working with died. It was far younger than it should have been. He knew that the dolphin wouldn’t have died in the wild, and it made him so upset that he quit his job, deciding to devote his life to freeing these intelligent creatures instead.

  With a friend, he created the Dolphin Project. Its aim is to learn as much as possible about dolphins, as well as to untrain those in sea-life centers and public aquariums, so they can be released back into the wild. In captivity, baby dolphins are often born in cramped glass tanks, where they’ll never know how it feels to leap in the ocean, chase ships, and hunt for their own food. All they know is boredom and how to perform for humans, so without the help of Ric and his team, they’d never be able to survive once they’re released into their natural environment.

  “In a world where so much that is wild and free has been lost to us,” he says, “we must leave these beautiful animals free to swim as they will and must.”

  BARACK OBAMA

  (BORN 1961)

  A lot of people said that the United States of America would never have a black president. But all of those people were wrong.

  In 1961, Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, an American island in the Pacific Ocean. He was six when he moved to Indonesia, a place where people ate snakes and grasshoppers and the kids battled with kites in the street. Some years, there was no rain and people went hungry. Other years, there was so much rain that it rushed along the roads in rivers.

  It was a difficult place to live, and eventually Barack was sent back to America.

  He grew up, married a woman named Michelle, and had two daughters, Sasha and Malia.

  But his country wasn’t doing as well. The American economy was in trouble, which meant people were poorer than they’d been in a long time and there weren’t enough jobs to go around. Americans wanted change. Wanting to help, Barack ran for president. Despite hundreds of years of racism, despite racist attacks from competitors, and despite it having been only fifty years since black people were allowed to vote, the American people elected Barack as president.

  He didn’t seem like any president that had come before him. He collected Spider-Man comics and played basketball and even danced on TV shows.

  He also created millions of new jobs, helped poorer people get medicine, ended two wars, and made it illegal to treat gay people or women differently than anyone else.

  And he did all that while raising his daughters alongside his wife. For Malia and Sasha, he was just trying to help create a world where everyone had a chance to be whoever they wanted to be.

  “That’s what twenty-first century feminism is about,” he said, “the idea that when everyone is equal, we are all more free.”

  FRANK OCEAN

  (BORN 1987)

  All Frank wanted to be when he grew up was a singer. As a teenager, he would mow people’s lawns, wash their cars, and walk their dogs to raise money so that he could get into a studio and record his songs. He lived in New Orleans, Louisiana.

  One day, a huge hurricane tore through the city. Thousands of people lost their lives, their homes, and everything they had. The studios where Frank had recorded his songs were gone, too.

  So he moved to Los Angeles to keep making music. He worked nonstop. And to support himself, he got jobs making sandwiches and typing boring lists of numbers into computers. Finally, he got a songwriting contract; every day, he went to the studio and wrote hip-hop, rap, and pop songs for other people who needed songs written for them.

  Eventually, he started releasing his own music and people were amazed.

  He signed a record deal. He recorded his first album.

  The night before it came out, Frank wrote a letter to his fans, telling the story of a long summer night when he’d first fallen in love and how the person he’d fallen in love with had been a man.

  People asked if he was gay. He told them labels didn’t matter to him.

  “I feel like a free man,” he said. “If I listen closely, I can hear the sky falling, too.”

  Other musicians wrote messages of support, talking about how courageous he was. It was courageous because, for a long time, it felt like the hip-hop community wouldn’t be tolerant of gay people.

  Frank doesn’t like being famous, but he’s grateful. He sometimes wishes he’d worn a mask so no one would know what he looks like. After his album did so well, he escaped his record label, disappeared, and didn’t reappear for years. Everyone had to wait four years for Frank to release his new album because he wanted it to be perfect. When it did finally come out, they loved him more than ever. He’d made something that was true to himself.

  CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

  (BORN 1983)

  Christopher didn’t like to read before his mom dragged him to the library. He hadn’t wanted to learn how and didn’t think he’d ever find reading useful. But on that trip, he picked up a book that led him into another world, and since then he’s never wanted to come home.

  After one particular story, Christopher started seeing great swooping dragons everywhere. He saw them in the shower, in the garden, and even when he closed his eyes.

  He knew it had to mean something.

  It meant he had to write.

  Using knowledge he’d gained from camping in the mountains behind his house, building shelters, making sw
ords, tracking animals, and practicing archery, Christopher began work on an epic fantasy novel set in a land that came straight from his own imagination. He was fifteen. One year later, he’d finished the book.

  The book was titled Eragon. It told the story of a farm boy who finds a dragon egg and is forced to flee his hometown when an evil king comes looking for it.

  At first, Christopher published the book with the help of his parents. He even drew the cover himself. To promote it, he went around different schools for a whole year, dressed in medieval costume, and read parts of his story.

  Eventually, an editor for a big publisher heard about him, read the book, and published it around the world. It was an instant bestseller.

  In 2011, Guinness World Records recognized him as the Youngest Author of a Bestselling Book Series.

  SERGEI POLUNIN

  (BORN 1989)

  Even as a ten-year-old, Sergei could spin through the air, fly like he was on strings, and bend as though he was made of clay.

  He grew up in a small town in the Ukraine. It was so small, his mom said that the only choice he had there was which type of cabbage to have for dinner. If he wanted to make something of himself, he’d have to go somewhere else.

  But his family was poor and it would be expensive to move. To raise the money, his dad left to work in Portugal and sent money back so that Sergei and his mom could move to a bigger town where Sergei could study dance.