Ishmael Beah, growing up in west Africa, lived a perfectly normal life until it was turned upside down by the Revolutionary United Front. His village, his family, and the daily life he was used to, was turned upside. He began a life that involved running from the war, fighting in the war, recovering from the war, suffering from the war, then finally recovering from the war for good. This book outlines the horrific challenges that faced one boy, and face many other children still today. This book has added importance on account of the recent interest sparked by the Kony 2012 campaign. The problem described in this campaign and the one in the book are not the same, but the overall outline is very similar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc . Just as with the campaign, this book show the injustice that are occurring in African countries.
In the setting of this book, the victims of the war are pretty much helpless. The rebel group that started the fighting destroys villages and families tearing apart people's lives in the process. The Sierra Leonian government is combating the rebels, but they end up doing about the same things as the rebels, which only makes the problem worse. The only time in the story where any aid is offered to the people in the war is when Ishmael is taken out of the fighting by UNICEF. Before this, Ishmael ends up fighting for the governments army and still commits the same war crimes that were committed against him. As Ishmael fights for the Sierra Leonean Army, his perspective on the war changes. he becomes exactly like the people who killed his family and destroyed his home. He destroys villages, kills innocent people, and is feared just as much as the rebels. It provides an inside look on what the war looked like from the soldiers' prospective.
Reading this book opens us up to the cruel and violent world that child soldiers are exposed to. Before the Kony 2012 campaign, child soldiering was a fairly unknown issue. Just as with that campaign, this book is supposed to open us up and raise our awareness levels about this issue. It should make us realize what the people in an other part of the world are going through and give us a new outlook on them.
Critique
A Long Way Gone is the story of a young man, Ishmael Beah, during a time when a war is tearing apart his home country, Sierra Leone. It covers his life before the war, his life running from the war, his participation in the war, and finally his recovery from the process. It is a fantastic redemptive tale that should be read by anyone looking for a good story. Beah does an incredible job of retelling his experiences in vivid detail. In these experiences, he describes some very graphic scenes. His descriptions of the violence of war as well as drug use by him and other soldiers can be quite disturbing. Overall, this was a wonderful book and I give it a 8 out of 10.
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2007. Print.
