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| A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Paperback
Author: Ishmael Beah
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Release Date: June 2007
ISBN-10: 0007253826
ISBN-13: 9780007253821
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometime.”
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Very impressive and inspiring
| Customer Rating: | This book is disturbing and for that reason should be on the short list of required texts for college. Unlike the WWI and WWII war books which read like ancient history this one hits close to home as most of the events transpired within the last decade. The author does a great job of telling his story from a boys point of view with imagery that will give you nightmares.
If you cannot handle reading about graphic violence, rape, murder, wartime atrocities, then do not buy this book. Otherwise it is a good companion to the Blood Diamond movie which covers some of the same material. |
Everyone Should Read This Book
| Customer Rating: | | This book about the boy soldiers of recent wars in Africa was especially meaningful for us because we lived in neighboring Liberia for 2 years just before the wars broke out. We were teaching school up "in the bush", and some of the boys thought it would be wonderful to be soldiers when they grew up. Well, they did not have time to grow up before the wars came and they were conscripted. The first hand account by Ishmael Beah matches what is published and/or shown about the war events in other countries. With the current attraction of our boys in the US to video "war games", they need to read what life is really like for boys in other countries. Parents need to know and make sure their children are aware of the plight of children in much of the world. It would counteract the huge desire for more things and entertainment here, and perhaps would cause our youth to be caring and benevolent to the many causes there are to help the unfortunate of the world. |
A Long Way Gone
| Customer Rating: | In this autobiography, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah tells the story of his Civil War experience. In his tragic story, Beah is trying to share his struggles with the world so that people are aware of what had happened to children in Seria Lone.
Throughout the book Ishmael looses his parents, sister, brother, and friends. For a month or so he is alone until he finds a new group of boys. These boys go though a lot together and end up becoming close friends. Later in the book they find a campsite that is willing to supply them with food and shelter, just what the boys need, in return for one thing; they had to become soldiers to help protect that campsite from the rebels. Ishmael had never planned on becoming a soldier so he was a little hesitant at first, but finally agreed. . As the months went on, Ishmael started to learn to love his life as a soldier and didn't want to give it up, until one day when he had no choice. Ishmael was picked up by a rehab center that helped children stay away from war. He finds out that life outside of the war is a lot different.
Ishmael did a great job in explaining his experience without leaving out any details. I felt his struggle and his emotion that came with it while I was reading his book.
Personally, I loved this book. Most of the time it was hard to put down. As a high school student, the book's descriptions were so vivid and realistic that it almost felt as if it were a movie. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good nonfiction book that is hard to put down.
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AMAIZINGLY INTERESTING
| Customer Rating: | | This book is so interesting that it is hard to put down and if all of this is true that these boys went thru it; it's more amaizing that the human body and mind can go thru so much and survive with some sort of humanity. |
Wow! Powerful....
| Customer Rating:  | | A Long Way Gone is a memoir of Ishmael Beah's days as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Some reviewers have questioned the accuracy of the details...I read this book with an open mind, realizing that this book details the author's memories of the events he experienced as a child soldier. Beah is a good storyteller, and effectively illustrates the horrifying reality of living in a country where the government is so vulnerable to rebel forces. The details are vivid, and at times, very difficult to read. I cannot fathom how traumatic it must have been to see so many people killed, and to be one of the killers. This is Beah's story, and the fact of the matter is that what happened to Beah is going on in other countries today, and everyone needs to be aware of it. This book should be required reading in middle and/or high school. An incredible story. |
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