Like much of the North Korean population, Songmi Han was living in desperate poverty. As a young child, she and her family lived a life of dire hardship, and many meals consisted of little more than grass. Domestic abuse, long hours of grueling physical labor, emotional abuse, and primal hunger were her constant companions. School was out of the question and she, along with her mother, had to steal food to survive. Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself, written by Songmi Han and Casey Lartigue Jr, is the perilous and gripping account of Songmi’s childhood and her escape from North Korea.