Conor Grennan graduated from the University of Virginia in 1996 and went straight to work for The East/West Institute, a public policy think tank. Eight years later, Grennan decided to leave his job and travel the world in search of adventure, starting by volunteering for three months at an orphanage in Nepal.

It may not be that unusual to take some time off during one's youth to travel and figure out "what's next," but the tale Grennan tells in his recently published "Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal" is truly extraordinary.

While in a country in the midst of a civil war, Grennan discovered that the children in the Little Princes Children's Home weren't in fact orphans, but had been stolen by child traffickers who promised their parents (for a huge fee) to keep them out of harms way during the war.

Grennan committed to reuniting these children - more than 300 to date - with their families, risking his life on a journey through the mountains, walking on an injured leg for four weeks - at times with little or no food - being confronted by Maoist soldiers, and living under constant fear of retribution from traffickers.

Grennan now lives in New Canaan with his wife and their son Finn, and a daughter on the way. I talked to him last week about the book and his mission to continue to connect families of trafficked children in postwar Nepal through Next Generation Nepal (NGN), a grassroots nonprofit organization he founded in 2007.

Q: Your book has been described as "not just another do-gooders tale from the trenches. Was that important to you, to set a tone that wasn't preachy and poke fun at yourself?

A: Yes, I wanted to write it the way I'd been writing blogs for years, that wasn't unnecessarily dramatic, and portray the kids as they were, and also try to make it humorous, because that's the kind of story that would grab my attention. And it's the truth. When you're dealing with kids, life is often not that serious, no matter what the (circumstances). I wanted to keep it authentic, even at the expense of sympathy. I had a big fear it would come across as earnest.

Q: Among your projects at the East/West Institute, you developed and managed anti-trafficking policy in the European Union and former Yugoslavia. Did that give you some indication that maybe the Nepalese kids weren't orphans, but taken from their families by child traffickers?

A: No, it really was a complete surprise. I'd never heard of this paradigm of trafficking through institutionalization, whereby the trafficker makes a tremendous amount of money opening illegal orphanages. He can send them out begging from tourists, sell them, put them up for illegal adoption. It's hideous.

Q: How did your relationship with the "little princes" develop? You didn't have your own children yet, but in the book you say that you were beginning to understand the sentiments parents expressed about their children, taking on a parent role yourself.

A: I did, although it took awhile. When I first got there, I thought of myself as something between big brother/buddy, and a tourist. I think it changed when two boys had to go to the hospital and I realized, this is the job of a parent, to take their kids to a hospital when they're sick. It opened my eyes to the fact that volunteering is a much bigger responsibility than we think sometimes. It's certainly not something to be taken as lightly as I'd been taking it for so long.

Q: How has this experience influenced you as a father? Most people don't become parents with this unique perspective.

A: At first it made me feel so grateful to be able to support my child and not have to make a decision whether to hold onto him or risk sending him away. The second thing is that it helped me (realize) kids are really resilient. What they need more than anything is love and some kind of

direction. They can survive so much and still come out the other side.

Q: What was it like to reunite children with their parents/families?

A: Amazing. When I actually gave a photo of the child to a mother and watched her collapse, break down in tears; touch the photo to her forehead. She'd given that child up years earlier. It was so unlikely that a guy, like me, a pale Caucasian, would show up with a photo of your child. The whole village gathered around and celebrated that this child came back to live. It was very emotional. I'm glad I wasn't a parent at the time, the emotion would have been too much, too hard to do my job.

Q: What do you say to people who are cynical about individuals being able to make a real difference in the world?

A: I was the biggest skeptic of all - I only went out to volunteer to impress people… I can now say with 100 percent certainty that if you are willing to keep persevering at whatever you're doing, no matter what comes along, you will make a difference.

E-mail Amy Barry at aimwrite@snet.net.

MORE INFO

"Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal" by Conor Grennan, (William Morrow) is $25.99, hardcover. A portion of proceeds from book sales goes to NGN. For information about donating/volunteering, visit www.nextgenerationnepal.org.

Grennan will give a talk and sign copies of his book at 12 p.m. on April 4 at Bank Square Books, 53 West Main St., Mystic. Tickets are purchase of book, plus tax and include light lunch (quiche, salad or wraps and dessert from Mystic Market), seltzer or wine. Seating is limited to 40. For reservations, call the bookstore at (860) 536-3795.