"Children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings . . .

books:

	• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 414 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"Children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings . . .

. . . if given a chance."

Ishmael Beah, author of this remarkable and very disturbing memoir, is living proof of this statement. It was a statement initially prepared for him as a spokesperson on the issue of child soldiers during his rehabilitation period, and one he learned to repeat again and again, as he outlived not only this wartime sufferings, but also all of his family members and most of his friends.

"Why does everyone keep dying except me?" is a question that plagues him, and plagues the reader as well upon reading brutal account after brutal account of rebel attacks on otherwise peaceful villages in the West African country of Sierra Leone. It takes a strong stomach to read his gut-wrenching descriptions of the killings. But Beah is a gifted writer with a clear memory and the ability to relate vivid visual descriptions and express his feelings. This book gives new meaning to the phrase: "living to tell the tale."

For example: "Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am." These were the words of a friend from a time before Beah and his group of teenage boys became drug-addicted, AK-47-carrying soldiers.

This is an important work about learning to understand not only the mind of a child soldier, but also the reasons behind how and why children become soldiers. Beah includes a chronology of events in Sierra Leone from 1462, when written history for the region began, until March, 2006. Very well written with a lot of rap and reggae music undertones, by a charming, educated, lucky, and grateful young man. Highly recommend.

Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.

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A must read book about child soldiers

This is an excellent book with a true story written from the child now grown. It is a poigant story with wonderful ending!

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A simple and powerful story

This story is simply told. There are no fancy literary flourishes designed to manipulate the reader's emotions and no eloquent explanations designed to sway us to a particular viewpoint. It is the simple story of a child unwittingly caught up in the appalling violence of civil war. The narrator tells his own story. It is the story of how civil war destroys the normality of life in his village, of how he runs from the advancing violence, but eventually cannot avoid being drafted into its very heart as a child soldier. He describes the process of desensitization that allows him to survive the horrors he participates in and the even more difficult process of learning to re-engage with civil society once he has been rescued from the battlefield.

Some readers may be disappointed by the fact that the book provides only very limited historical background to the conflict in Sierra Leone and by the fact that the narrator engages in only very limited introspection about what he has experienced. The plot also contains a few scenes that come across as a bit contrived and unlikely, but none of this detracts from the picture that is painted of the horrors of child soldiers involved in civil war. The power of the story lies in its simplicity and in the fact that we know it is being told by someone who lived through it.

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Remarkable story. Remarkable person!

Wow! What more can one say? This is probably one of my favorite books, which sounds a bit sadistic given what the book is about.

Ishmeal Beah must be commended for sharing with us his story and memories. You do get a sense that some of his worst memories are probably hidden within him, as sometimes the story looses its flow, and jumps and bumps a little along the way, which can be forgiven, since for much of his boy soldiering he was high at the time. You do get a good feel for the author's loss of childhood, and can easily loose yourself in his pain. The author gives so much however; that in the end it's a relief to know something positive happens in his life.

This was a good plug for UNICEF, which I always wondered about having traveled overseas quite a bit and been asked to donate my spare currency upon my return flights. It's nice to know they are doing good things, as in this case, having helped rehabilitate the author from a boy solider back to a boy again.

My only one small complaint, as if I should have one, is in how the story ends. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy how the author ended it. But, I would like to have read more about what happened to him after he came to America. Perhaps we'll get to read another book?

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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