Stories of Courage

Title: Stories of Courage
Author: Clare Swain
Publisher: Penguin Readers

Eight stories of people succeeding despite life's challenges The stories have one thing in common: behind each one is a strong person.

Everyone has their own intelligence to do something. This book is about courage. The stories in this book show us how brave men and women can be. They help us all to find new strength. There are eight stories in this book, and they are all true. Read about an ordinary man who travelled thousands of kilometers across land, rivers, and oceans after his escape from a Sudanese prison. Learn about the famous Cuban runner who won races again after a fight against pain and death. And discover how the courage of one man in Hiroshima, Japan , still helps people sixty years later. There are many different types of courage. Some people do not stop trying when things seem hopeless. Some people fight terrible pain. Some people are courageous in war and politics.
　
I really enjoy reading about the brave women in this book. Ana Quirot and Erin Brockovich Ana was a Cuban runner, she practiced very hard every day. In 1987 she won two gold medals at the Pan American Games, in 1989 she won all of her 800-metre races and won many many medals in a few years. She was very proud to run for her country and she felt proud of the past and excited about the future. But in 1993 Ana’s dreams were destroyed.

On January 23, she was washing some clothes in a large bowl on top of a stove. The drops of alcohol she was adding to the clothes fell onto the stove. In seconds, fire covered Ana’s body and she burned with heat and pain. The doctors worked hard to save their famous patient and they said: “ She will never run again.” But Ana said to her country’s president Castro : “I will run again.” She spent five long months become stronger. First she walked round her room. Sometimes she cried with pain and sadness.
　
Friends told her she must rest but Ana did not listen. She refused to stop. Fighting a few months after her accident she was winning again – winning against pain. Ana worked hard that year. She wanted to run for her country. In the same year as her terrible accident, she ran again and won a silver medal in the race. In 1996 the Olympic Games were in Atlanta, US. She ran as fast as she could in the race. It was a difficult race but Ana won the silver medal.
　
The second story is about Erin Brockovich and one of Julia Roberts’s best movies. Erin was a young American woman with no husband and three young children. She had no money and no jobs. She wanted to make their lives happy and comfortable, so she helped her lawyer organize papers into piles and boxes every day. She found some mysterious things when she started reading her lawyer’s papers to make her days more interesting.

She found that the large electricity company PG&E wanted to hide something because the company wanted to buy hundreds of houses in a town called Hinkley. She was worried about the residents’ health. She needed more information because she wanted to solve the mystery, so she asked her boss to help. Erin visited the residents and spoke to them about PG&E, their houses and their health. She was working alone but this did not stop her. She called and visited scientists, doctors and lawyers to collect the evidence.

Finally she got the information that she needed : PG&E was poisoning the water near Hinkley. She wanted to fight this large company for compensation but money was a big problem for Erin’s team. She worked five years to prepare notices and sent it for lawsuits. At last Erin’s team won the fight and PG&E had to pay $333 million to the residents of Hinkley. It was the largest amount of money for this type of lawsuit in the history of USA.
　
I learnt many special messages from the book. Everyone loves stories about brave people. Many of the most interesting movies, television programs, and books follow the lives of good, brave people who solve their problems with intelligence and courage. Ana was the best runner in the world but an accident almost destroyed her future. Her quick recovery from illness was due to her determination not to lose her fight to the sickness.

Being a runner and winning the medals gave her very big support. She said that, “If I don’t run again, I will die.” Every problem cannot stop her. Running for her country saved her life. She won the silver medal in her last competition but she won a great gold medal for courage. Ana’s fight against pain and illness is a good example of courage for all of us to learn.
　
In the movie Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts plays a brave woman fighting for ordinary people. She fights with great courage against the terrible actions of one of the biggest and richest companies in the USA. However, this story does not come from the imagination of a great Hollywood writer. It is Erin’s true story. Although Erin was not important, famous or rich, she was not even a lawyer, she just knew that she had to help in every possible way.

She is a very smart person that she can observe very small unusual things. She had to take care of her children and do her job, so she could only use her spare time to investigate the case. She could not sleep well during these days. After reading Erin’s story I feel that the big companies always do wrongful things. They only consider the profit they can earn. They do not want other people to know their secret so they try to do something to hide it.

Erin was very brave that she helped the residents to ask the largest company in the world to compensate them for the bad health they suffered. Erin hadn’t get any reward when she launched a lawsuit against PG&E. Erin’s courage and hard work carried victims through the most difficult times. This also gave hope to other ordinary people and small law offices.
　
Courage makes people stronger. And when we act bravely, we make the world a better place for other people too. We can fight our own problems with more courage after we read true stories like these.