The Nicholas Effect: A Boy's Gift to the World

In 1994, when their 7-year-old son, Nicholas, was killed during a botched car-jacking, Reg and Maggie Green galvanized all of Italy--and the world--by donating Nicholas's organs to seven desperately sick Italians, becoming a model of a grief-stricken family seeking to create good from horror, to reject vengeance in the face of great loss, to work for justice, and to proclaim--with each of their grace-filled actions--the superiority of love over hate. In The Nicholas Effect: A Boy's Gift to the World, Reg Green recollects the events--the shooting, the choice to donate Nicholas's organs, the overwhelming Italian response, the trial of the alleged murderers, and the Greens' worldwide crusade for organ donation. Since Nicholas's death, the seven Italians who received his organs have thrived--and so have thousands of others who have and will benefit from the worldwide surge in organ donations because of what's been dubbed the Nicholas Effect. Green's account of this truly heartrending, life-changing story is intensely personal yet will touch every reader's heart and do something few "inspirational" books manage to actually do--change lives. --Ericka Lutz