A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier [NOOK Book]

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Overview


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 ...
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More About This Book

Overview


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.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
By now, nearly every habitual news watcher knows that child soldiers are being used as human pawns in dozens of conflicts around the world. Indeed, the figures are staggering: As many as 300,000 children are currently fighting in wars. Behind these distressing figures, of course, are real-life children, some as young as 8. Journalistic reconstructions can take us only so far into the lives of these boys; we had to wait for this firsthand account by Sierra Leone native Ishmael Beah to truly understand this ghastly, life-shattering practice. Beah was only 13 when he was handed an AK-47 and sent off to the killing fields. A bracing memoir about a survivor in a world gone mad.
Carolyn See
Everyone in the world should read this book. Not just because it contains an amazing story, or because it's our moral, bleeding-heart duty, or because it's clearly written. We should read it to learn about the world and about what it means to be human.
— The Washington Post
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
In 1993, when the author was twelve, rebel forces attacked his home town, in Sierra Leone, and he was separated from his parents. For months, he straggled through the war-torn countryside, starving and terrified, until he was taken under the wing of a Shakespeare-spouting lieutenant in the government army. Soon, he was being fed amphetamines and trained to shoot an AK-47 (“Ignore the safety pin, they said, it will only slow you down”). Beah’s memoir documents his transformation from a child into a hardened, brutally efficient soldier who high-fived his fellow-recruits after they slaughtered their enemies—often boys their own age—and who “felt no pity for anyone.” His honesty is exacting, and a testament to the ability of children “to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.”

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780374706524
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Publication date: 4/1/2007
  • Sold by: ST MARTINS / MPS
  • Format: eBook
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 240
  • Sales rank: 7,932
  • File size: 319 KB
  • Items ship to U.S, APO/FPO and U.S. Protectorate addresses.

Meet the Author


Ishmael Beah was born in 1980 in Sierra Leone, West Africa. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vespertine Press, LIT, Parabola, and numerous academic journals. He is a UNICEF Ambassador and Advocate for Children Affected by War; a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Advisory Committee; an advisory board member at the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Violence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; visiting scholar at the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University; visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights at Rutgers University; cofounder of the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW); and president of the Ishmael Beah Foundation. He has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and many panels on the effects of war on children. His book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier has been published in over thirty languages and was nominated for a Quill Award in 2007. Time magazine named the book as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2007, ranking it at number three. Ishmael Beah is a graduate of Oberlin College with a B.A. in Political Science and resides in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently completing a novel set in his home country of Sierra Leone.

Read an Excerpt


Chapter One
There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land. It wasn't until refugees started passing through our town that we began to see that it was actually taking place in our country. Families who had walked hundreds of miles told how relatives had been killed and their houses burned. Some people felt sorry for them and offered them places to stay, but most of the refugees refused, because they said the war would eventually reach our town. The children of these families wouldn't look at us, and they jumped at the sound of chopping wood or as stones landed on the tin roofs flung by children hunting birds with slingshots. The adults among these children from the war zones would be lost in their thoughts during conversations with the elders of my town. Apart from their fatigue and malnourishment, it was evident they had seen something that plagued their minds, something that we would refuse to accept if they told us all of it. At times I thought that some of the stories the passersby told were exaggerated. The only wars I knew of were those that I had read about in books or seen in movies such as Rambo: First Blood, and the one in neighboring Liberia that I had heard about on the BBC news. My imagination at ten years old didn't have the capacity to grasp what had taken away the happiness of the refugees.


The first time that I was touched by war I was twelve. It was in January of 1993. I left home with Junior, my older brother, and our friend Talloi, both a year older than I, to go to the town of Mattru Jong, to participate in our friends' talent show. Mohamed, my best friend, couldn't come because he and his father were renovating their thatched-roof kitchen that day. The four of us had started a rap and dance group when I was eight. We were first introduced to rap music during one of our visits to Mobimbi, a quarter where the foreigners who worked for the same American company as my father lived. We often went to Mobimbi to swim in a pool and watch the huge color television and the white people who crowded the visitors' recreational area. One evening a music video that consisted of a bunch of young black fellows talking really fast came on the television. The four of us sat there mesmerized by the song, trying to understand what the black fellows were saying. At the end of the video, some letters came up at the bottom of the screen. They read "Sugarhill Gang, 'Rapper's Delight.'" Junior quickly wrote it down on a piece of paper. After that, we came to the quarters every other weekend to study that kind of music on television. We didn't know what it was called then, but I was impressed with the fact that the black fellows knew how to speak English really fast, and to the beat.

Later on, when Junior went to secondary school, he befriended some boys who taught him more about foreign music and dance. During holidays, he brought me cassettes and taught my friends and me how to dance to what we came to know as hip-hop. I loved the dance, and particularly enjoyed learning the lyrics, because they were poetic and it improved my vocabulary. One afternoon, Father came home while Junior, Mohamed, Talloi, and I were learning the verse of "I Know You Got Soul" by Eric B. & Rakim. He stood by the door of our clay brick and tin roof house laughing and then asked, "Can you even understand what you are saying?" He left before Junior could answer. He sat in a hammock under the shade of the mango, guava, and orange trees and tuned his radio to the BBC news.

"Now, this is good English, the kind that you should be listening to," he shouted from the yard.

While Father listened to the news, Junior taught us how to move our feet to the beat. We alternately moved our right and then our left feet to the front and back, and simultaneously did the same with our arms, shaking our upper bodies and heads. "This move is called the running man," Junior said. Afterward, we would practice miming the rap songs we had memorized. Before we parted to carry out our various evening chores of fetching water and cleaning lamps, we would say "Peace, son" or "I'm out," phrases we had picked up from the rap lyrics. Outside, the evening music of birds and crickets would commence.


On the morning that we left for Mattru Jong, we loaded our backpacks with notebooks of lyrics we were working on and stuffed our pockets with cassettes of rap albums. In those days we wore baggy jeans, and underneath them we had soccer shorts and sweatpants for dancing. Under our long-sleeved shirts we had sleeveless undershirts, T-shirts, and soccer jerseys. We wore three pairs of socks that we pulled down and folded to make our crapes* look puffy. When it got too hot in the day, we took some of the clothes off and carried them on our shoulders. They were fashionable, and we had no idea that this unusual way of dressing was going to benefit us. Since we intended to return the next day, we didn't say goodbye or tell anyone where we were going. We didn't know that we were leaving home, never to return.

To save money, we decided to walk the sixteen miles to Mattru Jong. It was a beautiful summer day, the sun wasn't too hot, and the walk didn't feel long either, as we chatted about all kinds of things, mocked and chased each other. We carried slingshots that we used to stone birds and chase the monkeys that tried to cross the main dirt road. We stopped at several rivers to swim. At one river that had a bridge across it, we heard a passenger vehicle in the distance and decided to get out of the water and see if we could catch a free ride. I got out before Junior and Talloi, and ran across the bridge with their clothes. They thought they could catch up with me before the vehicle reached the bridge, but upon realizing that it was impossible, they started running back to the river, and just when they were in the middle of the bridge, the vehicle caught up to them. The girls in the truck laughed and the driver tapped his horn. It was funny, and for the rest of the trip they tried to get me back for what I had done, but they failed.

We arrived at Kabati, my grandmother's village, around two in the afternoon. Mamie Kpana was the name that my grandmother was known by. She was tall and her perfectly long face complemented her beautiful cheekbones and big brown eyes. She always stood with her hands either on her hips or on her head. By looking at her, I could see where my mother had gotten her beautiful dark skin, extremely white teeth, and the translucent creases on her neck. My grandfather or kamor--teacher, as everyone called him--was a well-known local Arabic scholar and healer in the village and beyond.

At Kabati, we ate, rested a bit, and started the last six miles. Grandmother wanted us to spend the night, but we told her that we would be back the following day.

"How is that father of yours treating you these days?" she asked in a sweet voice that was laden with worry.

"Why are you going to Mattru Jong, if not for school? And why do you look so skinny?" she continued asking, but we evaded her questions. She followed us to the edge of the village and watched as we descended the hill, switching her walking stick to her left hand so that she could wave us off with her right hand, a sign of good luck.


We arrived in Mattru Jong a couple of hours later and met up with old friends, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou. That night we went out to Bo Road, where street vendors sold food late into the night. We bought boiled groundnut and ate it as we conversed about what we were going to do the next day, made plans to see the space for the talent show and practice. We stayed in the verandah room of Khalilou's house. The room was small and had a tiny bed, so the four of us (Gibrilla and Kaloko went back to their houses) slept in the same bed, lying across with our feet hanging. I was able to fold my feet in a little more since I was shorter and smaller than all the other boys.

The next day Junior, Talloi, and I stayed at Khalilou's house and waited for our friends to return from school at around 2:00 p.m. But they came home early. I was cleaning my crapes and counting for Junior and Talloi, who were having a push-up competition. Gibrilla and Kaloko walked onto the verandah and joined the competition. Talloi, breathing hard and speaking slowly, asked why they were back. Gibrilla explained that the teachers had told them that the rebels had attacked Mogbwemo, our home. School had been canceled until further notice. We stopped what we were doing.

According to the teachers, the rebels had attacked the mining areas in the afternoon. The sudden outburst of gunfire had caused people to run for their lives in different directions. Fathers had come running from their workplaces, only to stand in front of their empty houses with no indication of where their families had gone. Mothers wept as they ran toward schools, rivers, and water taps to look for their children. Children ran home to look for parents who were wandering the streets in search of them. And as the gunfire intensified, people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town.

"This town will be next, according to the teachers." Gibrilla lifted himself from the cement floor. Junior, Talloi, and I took our backpacks and headed to the wharf with our friends. There, people were arriving from all over the mining area. Some we knew, but they couldn't tell us the whereabouts of our families. They said the attack had been too sudden, too chaotic; that everyone had fled in different directions in total confusion.

For more than three hours, we stayed at the wharf, anxiously waiting and expecting either to see our families or to talk to someone who had seen them. But there was no news of them, and after a while we didn't know any of the people who came across the river. The day seemed oddly normal. The sun peacefully sailed through the white clouds, birds sang from treetops, the trees danced to the quiet wind. I still couldn't believe that the war had actually reached our home. It is impossible, I thought. When we left home the day before, there had been no indication the rebels were anywhere near.

"What are you going to do?" Gibrilla asked us. We were all quiet for a while, and then Talloi broke the silence. "We must go back and see if we can find our families before it is too late."

Junior and I nodded in agreement.


Just three days earlier, I had seen my father walking slowly from work. His hard hat was under his arm and his long face was sweating from the hot afternoon sun. I was sitting on the verandah. I had not seen him for a while, as another stepmother had destroyed our relationship again. But that morning my father smiled at me as he came up the steps. He examined my face, and his lips were about to utter something, when my stepmother came out. He looked away, then at my stepmother, who pretended not to see me. They quietly went into the parlor. I held back my tears and left the verandah to meet with Junior at the junction where we waited for the lorry. We were on our way to see our mother in the next town about three miles away. When our father had paid for our school, we had seen her on weekends over the holidays when we were back home. Now that he refused to pay, we visited her every two or three days. That afternoon we met Mother at the market and walked with her as she purchased ingredients to cook for us. Her face was dull at first, but as soon as she hugged us, she brightened up. She told us that our little brother, Ibrahim, was at school and that we would go get him on our way from the market. She held our hands as we walked, and every so often she would turn around as if to see whether we were still with her.

As we walked to our little brother's school, Mother turned to us and said, "I am sorry I do not have enough money to put you boys back in school at this point. I am working on it." She paused and then asked, "How is your father these days?"

"He seems all right. I saw him this afternoon," I replied. Junior didn't say anything.

Mother looked him directly in the eyes and said, "Your father is a good man and he loves you very much. He just seems to attract the wrong stepmothers for you boys."

When we got to the school, our little brother was in the yard playing soccer with his friends. He was eight and pretty good for his age. As soon as he saw us, he came running, throwing himself on us. He measured himself against me to see if he had gotten taller than me. Mother laughed. My little brother's small round face glowed, and sweat formed around the creases he had on his neck, just like my mother's. All four of us walked to Mother's house. I held my little brother's hand, and he told me about school and challenged me to a soccer game later in the evening. My mother was single and devoted herself to taking care of Ibrahim. She said he sometimes asked about our father. When Junior and I were away in school, she had taken Ibrahim to see him a few times, and each time she had cried when my father hugged Ibrahim, because they were both so happy to see each other. My mother seemed lost in her thoughts, smiling as she relived the moments.

Two days after that visit, we had left home. As we now stood at the wharf in Mattru Jong, I could visualize my father holding his hard hat and running back home from work, and my mother, weeping and running to my little brother's school. A sinking feeling overtook me.


Junior, Talloi, and I jumped into a canoe and sadly waved to our friends as the canoe pulled away from the shores of Mattru Jong. As we landed on the other side of the river, more and more people were arriving in haste. We started walking, and a woman carrying her flip-flops on her head spoke without looking at us: "Too much blood has been spilled where you are going. Even the good spirits have fled from that place." She walked past us. In the bushes along the river, the strained voices of women cried out, "Nguwor gbor mu ma oo," God help us, and screamed the names of their children: "Yusufu, Jabu, Foday . . ." We saw children walking by themselves, shirtless, in their underwear, following the crowd. "Nya nje oo, nya keke oo," my mother, my father, the children were crying. There were also dogs running, in between the crowds of people, who were still running, even though far away from harm. The dogs sniffed the air, looking for their owners. My veins tightened.


We had walked six miles and were now at Kabati, Grandmother's village. It was deserted. All that was left were footprints in the sand leading toward the dense forest that spread out beyond the village.

As evening approached, people started arriving from the mining area. Their whispers, the cries of little children seeking lost parents and tired of walking, and the wails of hungry babies replaced the evening songs of crickets and birds. We sat on Grandmother's verandah, waiting and listening.

"Do you guys think it is a good idea to go back to Mogbwemo?" Junior asked. But before either of us had a chance to answer, a Volkswagen roared in the distance and all the people walking on the road ran into the nearby bushes. We ran, too, but didn't go that far. My heart pounded and my breathing intensified. The vehicle stopped in front of my grandmother's house, and from where we lay, we could see that whoever was inside the car was not armed. As we, and others, emerged from the bushes, we saw a man run from the driver's seat to the sidewalk, where he vomited blood. His arm was bleeding. When he stopped vomiting, he began to cry. It was the first time I had seen a grown man cry like a child, and I felt a sting in my heart. A woman put her arms around the man and begged him to stand up. He got to his feet and walked toward the van. When he opened the door opposite the driver's, a woman who was leaning against it fell to the ground. Blood was coming out of her ears. People covered the eyes of their children.

In the back of the van were three more dead bodies, two girls and a boy, and their blood was all over the seats and the ceiling of the van. I wanted to move away from what I was seeing, but couldn't. My feet went numb and my entire body froze. Later we learned that the man had tried to escape with his family and the rebels had shot at his vehicle, killing all his family. The only thing that consoled him, for a few seconds at least, was when the woman who had embraced him, and now cried with him, told him that at least he would have the chance to bury them. He would always know where they were laid to rest, she said. She seemed to know a little more about war than the rest of us.

The wind had stopped moving and daylight seemed to be quickly giving in to night. As sunset neared, more people passed through the village. One man carried his dead son. He thought the boy was still alive. The father was covered with his son's blood, and as he ran he kept saying, "I will get you to the hospital, my boy, and everything will be fine." Perhaps it was necessary that he cling to false hopes, since they kept him running away from harm. A group of men and women who had been pierced by stray bullets came running next. The skin that hung down from their bodies still contained fresh blood. Some of them didn't notice that they were wounded until they stopped and people pointed to their wounds. Some fainted or vomited. I felt nauseated, and my head was spinning. I felt the ground moving, and people's voices seemed to be far removed from where I stood trembling.

The last casualty that we saw that evening was a woman who carried her baby on her back. Blood was running down her dress and dripping behind her, making a trail. Her child had been shot dead as she ran for her life. Luckily for her, the bullet didn't go through the baby's body. When she stopped at where we stood, she sat on the ground and removed her child. It was a girl, and her eyes were still open, with an interrupted innocent smile on her face. The bullets could be seen sticking out just a little bit in the baby's body and she was swelling. The mother clung to her child and rocked her. She was in too much pain and shock to shed tears.

Junior, Talloi, and I looked at each other and knew that we must return to Mattru Jong, because we had seen that Mogbwemo was no longer a place to call home and that our parents couldn't possibly be there anymore. Some of the wounded people kept saying that Kabati was next on the rebels' list. We didn't want to be there when the rebels arrived. Even those who couldn't walk very well did their best to keep moving away from Kabati. The image of that woman and her baby plagued my mind as we walked back to Mattru Jong. I barely noticed the journey, and when I drank water I didn't feel any relief even though I knew I was thirsty. I didn't want to go back to where that woman was from; it was clear in the eyes of the baby that all had been lost.

Excerpted from A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. Copyright © 2007 by Ishmael Beah. Published in February 2007 by Sarah Crichton Books, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

Reading Group Guide

Advance Praise “A Long Way Gone is one of the most important war stories of our generation. The arming of children is among the greatest evils of the modern world, and yet we know so little about it because the children themselves are swallowed up by the very wars they are forced to wage. Ishmael Beah has not only emerged intact from this chaos, he has become one of its most eloquent chroniclers. We ignore his message at our peril.” ?Sebastian Junger, author of A Death in Belmont and The Perfect Storm

“This is a beautifully written book. Ishmael Beah describes the unthinkable in calm, unforgettable language; his memoir is an important testament to the children elsewhere who continue to be conscripted into armies and militias.” —Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

“A Long Way Gone is a wrenching, beautiful, and mesmerizing tale. Beah’s amazing saga provides a haunting lesson about how gentle folks can be capable of great brutalities as well as goodness and courage. It will leave you breathless.” —Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

About This Guide

The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. We hope they will enrich your experience as you explore his inspiring, infinitely valuable story.

Introduction

An estimated 300,000 child soldiers now fight in the more than fifty violent conflicts raging around the globe. Far removed from the world of pundits and journalists, policymakers and diplomats, a thirteen-year-old boy named Ishmael Beah became one of these young warriors in Sierra Leone. Now in his mid-twenties, he courageously tells of the horrific road that led him to wield an AK-47 and, fueled by trauma and drugs, commit terrible acts. A Long Way Gone brings a rare voice of frontline realism to a widely publicized (and widely misunderstood) human-rights crisis.

In poignantly clear and dauntless storytelling, Ishmael describes how he fled brutal rebel soldiers, traveling miles from home on foot and gradually being reduced to a life of raw survival instincts. Yet, unlike so many of his peers, Ishmael lived to reclaim his true self, emerging from Sierra Leone as the gentle, hopeful young man he was at heart. His memoir is at once crucial testimony for understanding the tragedy of contemporary war zones, and a testament to the power of peacemakers.

Questions for Discussion

1. How familiar were you with the civil wars of Sierra Leone prior to reading A Long Way Gone? How has Ishmael’s story changed your perception of this history, and of current wars in general?

2. Chapter seven begins with the story of the imam’s death, followed by Ishmael’s recollections of his father and an elder blessing their home when they first moved to Mogbwemo. How do the concepts of faith and hope shift throughout this memoir? What sustains Ishmael emotionally and spiritually?

3. Chapter eight closes with the image of villagers running fearfully from Ishmael and his friends, believing that the seven boys are rebels. How do they overcome these negative assumptions in communities that have begun to associate the boys’ appearance with evil? What lessons could world leaders learn from them about overcoming distrust, and the importance of judging others individually rather than as stereotypes?

4. What did Ishmael’s parents teach him about being a man? How did he define manhood once he began his long walk west? What general life lessons were his parents able to teach him that sustained him during his brutal passage from boyhood, and that he carries with him to this day?

5. Discuss the role of American hip-hop culture in creating a “soundtrack” for Ishmael’s life. Why are rappers so appealing to him?

6. The boys’ discovery of the Atlantic Ocean and their encounter with a cheerful fisherman who heals and feeds them is followed by the tragedy of Saidu’s death after a bird falls ominously from the sky. Discuss Ishmael’s relationship with the natural world. In what way is he guided by the constancy of the earth and sky?

7. When Ishmael arrives at the fortified village of Yele in chapter twelve, what do you discover about the way he began his military career? Was his service, and that of his equally young friends, necessary? What made his conscription different from that of drafted American soldiers serving in previous wars?

8. Ishmael tells us that some of the boys who had been rehabilitated with him later became soldiers again. What factors ensured that he could remain a civilian?

9. Storytelling is a powerful force in Ishmael’s life, even providing a connection to his future mother, Laura Simms. What traits make Ishmael a memorable and unique storyteller? How does his perspective compare to the perspectives of filmmakers, reporters, or other authors who have recently tried to portray Africa’s civil wars?

10. Ishmael describes his use of Krio and many tribal languages to communicate, as well as his ability to quote Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English. What communities and empires are represented in his many speech styles? In which “villages,” from the relatively new UN to the centuries-old Mende and Temne settlements, does the greatest wisdom lie?

11. How does Ishmael’s concept of family change throughout the memoir, from his early life in Mattru Jong, to the uncle with whom he is reunited, to his American family with Laura?

12. It takes many weeks before Ishmael feels comfortable with the relief workers’ refrain that these events are not his fault. What destructive beliefs had he become addicted to? What states of deprivation and euphoria had his body become addicted to?

13. What universal truths does Ishmael teach us about surviving loss and hunger, and overcoming isolation?

14. Ishmael’s dramatic escape during the later waves of revolution concludes with the riddle of the monkey. Is his dream of obliterating the monkey—and its violent endgames—closer to being fulfilled in these early years of the twenty-first century? What would it take for all of humanity to adopt Ishmael’s rejection of vengeance?

15. Ishmael gives credit to relief workers such as Esther, in conjunction with organizations such as UNICEF, for rescuing him. He has dedicated his life to their cause, studying political science and speaking before a broad variety of groups, ranging from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. What steps has he inspired you to take to help end the use of child soldiers? How can each of us join Ishmael’s cause?

16. After reading the chronology of Sierra Leone’s history, what reasons can you propose for the coups in Ishmael’s homeland? Did the arrival of Portuguese slave traders, or the later colonization by the British, contribute to Sierra Leone’s twentieth-century woes? What did you discover about the motivations of the army soldiers versus those of the rebels? In your opinion, what made the leaders of the RUF so ruthless for so long?

About the Author

Ishmael Beah came to the United States when he was seventeen. A 2004 graduate of Oberlin College, he is now a member of Human Rights Watch Children’s Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations on several occasions. He lives in New York City.

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  • Posted February 25, 2011

    Great read!

    I read this book and found Beah's experience quite amazing; I have come to realize that in every aspect of life, it depends on the next generation to preserve a healthy society, and the terrorists in Sierra-Lione or in any other place for that matter aren't making it any easier.

    4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 17, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Child soldiers...

    This book chronicles the childhood of young Ishmael in Sierra Leone. A fairly normal childhood until he is forced to run into the jungle as soldiers attack his village killing everyone they can catch and looting and burning the rest.

    For a short while flanked by others his age in similar situations he survives life constantly on the run. Then he is captured by a group of soldiers and retrained to think right and to be a soldier in the conflict. Some of the 'retrainee' soldiers are only 8 or 9 years old! Are these rebels trying to overthrow the government? Or the army protecting the citizens? Turns out not to matter. Each side is equally brutal and vicious. There is no good guys, only bad. He learns to fight, shoot and kill as well as the real soldiers. And to help avoid any feelings or reflection on his activities he is given access to various drugs to 'amp' him up further.

    By the grace of whatever higher power you choose to believe in, he gets selected for deprogramming and entry back into society. Not an easy task, but due to the incredible efforts of UNICEF and others it is finally done. Find out what has become of this young man and his new life. It is an unbelievable story.

    If it all wasn't the truth. No punches spared. No letting himself off easy after his actions. Most poignantly the story is clearly written by a child.No ghostwriters to neaten it up. You get the whole horrible story from the raw emotional perspective of a 12 year old! I know I would not have survived as well as he has did. You can't help but cry as you turn the pages and confront one terror after another. Everyone should read this book!

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 19, 2009

    SOOOOOOOOO SAD........

    I highly recommend this book it was a touching and horrible-to-imagine-this-happens-to-people memoir. Read for yourself!

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted September 30, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    book review long way gone

    A long way gone is an amazing story about a 12 year old boy named Ishmael Beah, who wants to be a rapper, living in a war torn country. He experience many hard ships through his life including graphic killings, horrific scenery, drug use, and lose of his family members. He is being chased by the ruthless rebels who want to take over the country and is backed into a corner. With hard times and with little combat training by the government he takes his gun and decides to fight back. His only options are kill or be killed.

    This book was an amazing book. It opened my eyes to how real and horrible some countries are. Young kids not even teenagers being forced to fight, snort cocaine mixed with gun powder, and watch people they love die gruesome deaths on a regular basis is just mind blowing to me. This book is not your average fairy tale. It is a very graphic and real book but if you are looking for something to open your eyes to what is really going on out there, this is the book for you

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted June 17, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    shockingly true

    This story was heartbreakingly sad and shockingly true in this memoir of war, seen through a child's eyes; not just seeing it and living it, but also killing in it. This brings a view of war to a totally different level. Of course, war is never "pretty", but shown from this 13 year old childs eyes, it caused this mom to shudder at what he had seen and lived through. I was also touched that a stranger here would also become this childs new mentor and parent. It renewed my hope in mankind, and drops me to me knees, praying for peace not only for children but for all of us. And to see what this young man has become... Awe-inspiring.

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted January 28, 2012

    Possibly the single-most important book in capturing the war that took place in Sierra Leone about 20 years ago.

    In Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, he presents the ideas of living in poverty in Sierra Leone, Africa, as well as finding a method to survive in times of hardship. Beah has an approach to the writing that leans toward expository, though he still crafts a well-written memoir. Beah’s purpose of writing this novel is to let us feel his emotion through the perilous events rather than having the emotion given to us.
    A Long Way Gone is a memoir (pointed out in the novel’s subtitle Memoirs of a Boy Soldier), though the writing does not express a full rendition of a memoir. Beah often lingers off into expository writing, where he informs us of impactful situations instead of showing us true feelings about them. Even though Beah feels strong opposition towards the war, he approaches it in the calmest of ways when he writes. Of course, A Long Way Gone is not for the sensitive reader; it should appeal more to readers who have read a similar book about poverty or hardship in the past. For me personally, A Long Way Gone sends some mixed messages when it comes to reading a piece of writing revolving around war and the extreme efforts to survive through it. However, this novel has a powerful impact on the way I think of discrimination and the terrible lives of the crippled and poor.
    As the author, Ishmael Beah’s premises for A Long Way Gone are wrapped around his amazement at how he managed to survive or transport to the United States alive. It was his willingness and urge to write about his experiences that gave us A Long Way Gone.
    To sum it up, the story raises issues such as constant depression in the war, where people are forced to survive in harsh conditions while being savagely treated by their enemies. This is a common theme in the book. Quite accordingly, the author emphasizes this theme through the description of hard-to-bear situations such as not being fed, not being protected, and not being the hunter of the game, but the hunted.
    The clearness of A Long Way Gone is good enough so that you can recognize characters and their personalities, as well as events, themes, patterns, and significant information. It is also clear enough to see that the book’s life-threatening situations are having an impact on Beah. If Beah’s ultimate goal in writing this book was to expose the injustice of the war and leave it exposed, then I’d say he achieved that goal.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 23, 2009

    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is a personal narrative about his experience in Sierra Leone's civil war. He tries to escape the rebels, is taken in as a boy soldier, and is rehabilitated by UNICEF. The book has a strong message about the child fighting in Africa.
    Beah hives accurate descriptions of his day to day life. Some of the events are horrific and scar him for life, such as seeing dead bodies all over invaded and burning villages. His personal feelings and his psychological troubles that are told provide great insight into the effects of the turmoil continuously happening in African countries. While some of the story seems repetitive and drawn out, it is the truth as it happened and as people need to know it.
    Most people know of at least some of the things that take place in these hostile environments, but they often do not realize the full impact the battles and killings have on the people, especially the children. This book gives an accurate, well done description of what it is like, and while things like this have to be experienced to understand all of the fear and anger; it reveals some of the truths and horrors to try to stop the injustices.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 19, 2009

    Don't Waste Your Money

    I am very disappointed in this book. The characters seem to be fictitious/unbelievable. The writer is extremly corney. The book is more like a novel than a memoir. Here are some examples: My hips were gyrating to the music!? One lonely cricket tried to sing but none of it's companions joined in!? I can go on and on and on and on. What west african child soldier writes like this. Fool me once!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 1, 2007

    outstanding.

    This book is one of the most mesmerizing books that I have picked up in quite a while. The author's shocking descriptions and vivid imagery can only contribute to this wonderfully narrated and expertly crafted novel. Anyone looking for a good, thought-provoking read--whether interested in the socioeconomic state in Africa or not--will undoubtedly find this book enjoyable. I did!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 23, 2007

    A Call To Renew Our Commitment To the Human Race

    I have not read the book I just bought it and I will read it as soon as it arrives. I saw the young man on John Stewart's show, 'The Daily Show' and was immediately a taken by his story. I am a believer in his story before I even read the book because I too grew up in a war torn country and I could immediately relate. Everything he said, about living in a war state and still come out whole is true. I was born and raised in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80s I was a child who saw death with her own eyes. People ask me how I survived the traumatic experience of seeing a person who has been burned beyong recognition and is lying on the street in front of me. I tell them, simply, I was a child who simply grew up and never looked back. His story is remarkable. I will make sure my children read this book so they can see what other children in third world countries live like. My children are fortunate because they grow up in a first world country, and they cannot begin to understand what their parents went through, and hopefully it will empower them to work for the human race, to be better adults and understand the people on the receiving end of wars.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 5, 2012

    A Long Way Gone.

    This book is the easiest reading assignment I have received. It keeps you on the edge waiting for the rebels to come and when people assume the boys and himself are rebels.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 4, 2012

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    The Horrors of Children at War

    A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah portrays the horrors of child soldiers and expresses the sadness of war. Ishmael decided to write this memoir to show the experiences he faced while he lived in Sierra Leone. From the start, Ishmael is separated from his family and he never sees them again. He stays with friends from his village, and they all look out for each other. This ultimately keeps Ishmael alive, because he still has hope that he can survive. Ishmael and his friends escape the war for a little while, but their lives are changed forever when rebels surround the village that they are in. The only way for them to escape is to fight. A village elder becomes their leader and trains them, gives them weapons and a uniform, and drugs to keep them calm. They become accustomed to fighting and are addicted to the drugs. They are always high on either marijuana, cocaine, or brown-brown, which is a mixture of drugs. They become very fierce fighters within a very short amount of time.
    Eventually, Ishmael and his friends are taken out of the war when they are sent off with UNICEF. He has many struggles in rehabilitation, but he eventually lives with his uncle and extended family in another part of Sierra Leone. Ishmael then is chosen to go to a conference in New York to discuss children fighting in wars worldwide. He meets many other teenagers that went through similar wars in other parts of the world. Ishmael soon acquires a passion for New York and decides to live there with his leader from the conference, and the story ends.
    Beah is very graphic and descriptive in his memoir. He wants the readers to know that what he went through was very dangerous and that children fighting in wars is a very serious matter. I personally think that Ishmael did an excellent job in achieving his goal to open peoples’ eyes to the wars worldwide. In America, it is hard for you to imagine children running around wielding weapons and shooting at each other. However, in poverty-stricken areas of the world, this is a commonplace. People need to be educated about this problem so we can do something to stop the chaos. One point that Ishmael makes in the book is how addicted to fighting he got that he could kill many people, without even thinking about the damage that he was doing. He also talks about how the drugs were so mesmerizing that they would smoke things like paper if they ran out of drugs. That is how extreme things became for Ishmael during the war.
    What I really love about this book is the detail that Ishmael uses in describing the events taking place. Most of the time while I was reading, I felt like I was right behind him watching what was going on. Some parts are very sad and make you appreciate the life that you have. I cannot really connect with Ishmael and his experiences because my life is much different than his was. I go to school, play sports, and hang out with friends and family. He is lucky just to have survived past his teen years. We take our freedoms for granted each and every day without even stopping to think about others around the world. They are fighting over their freedom because they don’t like how their government is being run.
    Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. I never knew about the war in Sierra Leone, so I got educated about how bloody it was. I want to make a difference so that things like child soldiers in wars don’t happen. World peace may never be possible, but children fighting

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    Highly Recommended- A must read book!

    The book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, discusses issues with child soldiers in Uganda, and Ishmaels’ experiences as one. With his mother and father slaughtered by the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), he must discover a new family that will feed him, clothe him, and teach him the way of life. In Ishmael’s mind, The Sierra Leone Armed Forces, rivals to the RUF, somehow seem to appeal to those qualifications. With choosing to be a child soldier for the government forces, he embarks on a journey which would tear away all of his innocence. He witnesses death, anger, and destruction from all sides of his vision. Ishmael develops a clouded mind in which he believes that fighting is the only solution to every problem, and that anger is key to achieving success. As if God had reached out to him, Ishmael is picked up by UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) and sent to a rehabilitation center for children involved in the war. Now twenty-six years old and living in New York City, Ishmael delivers a vigorously riveting story of his life. Ishmael wrote his tragic life memoir in order to show the world his country’s problem and how it desperately needs to be fixed. The things that child soldiers in Uganda are forced to do, are nothing like what well brought up children ever possibly think about. Nothing in this book shows to me why readers won’t agree with his point. I fully agree with Ishmael on this matter based on the reasons of rape, killing innocents, drugs, mental disturbance, and time to rehabilitate. This book deals with the strong topic of child soldiers. With that topic, many themes will come to surface. For instance, always learn from your mistakes and be open to change. Another greatly stressed theme is to let people help you. Don’t close your heart off for something that wasn’t your fault. Many situations including his drug infested lifestyle are a clear basis for Ishmael’s assertions. The fact that he has come out of being a child soldier alive, and is able to give a first-person account of the terrors, is just incredible. This book has been clearly written and it deserves the utmost respect from its readers. When Ishmael wrote this book, not only did he achieve his ultimate goal of proving to us that child soldiers are a problem, he also presented further why the effects of being one can be detrimental to how people think. He showed us the time, torture, and love it took to get through his nightmares, health issues, and drug withdrawal. A Long Way Gone will show readers the atrocities of being a child soldier and it will positively stain their heart forever. It will make them aware of children who will never be able to live normal lives. In comparison to other books, this one is of a different caliber. It doesn’t necessarily pack the punch of an adventurous or mysterious story, but it has a powerful message that trumps all others in its category. When compared to memoirs, it is one of the best I have ever read. Child soldiering is a crime which demands intervention for numerous reasons. I have much praise for this book and cannot tell you how glad I was to read it. It opened my eyes to problems which I had no idea were occurring before I had read this book. A Long Way Gone changed me on the inside and it captured my attention. Ishmael Beah’s story is painful and disturbing, but it is unquestionably worthy of every reader’s eyes.

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    Excellent Book. A must read!!

    Most teenage boys are busy getting good grades, growing up, and playing video games; not Ishmael Beah. In his memoir A Long Way Gone, Ishmael recounts his childhood in Sierra Leone. While still being a boy, he has to quickly evolve into a man, a painful and tragic transformation. With vivid description and flowing language, Beah powerfully describes how war changed his life.

    When war reaches Ishmael's area of Sierre Leone, he and a group of surviving friends set out to find safety and their loved ones. After travelling the country, the small group of refugees find safety in a village occupied by the Government Army. Eventually he and his friends are recruited by the army to fight the rebels who had destroyed their homes. Beah expertly describes his experiences as a boy soldier and his transformations between being a civilian and a killer. After all Ishmael went through, it is amazing how he was able to write a book such as A Long Way Gone with little hatred or contempt. In fact, despite the story being subjective, the book contains little emotion. The lack of emotion can sometimes be confusing, as I found myself forgetting that the events actually happened to him. This would cause me to read a passage in a surreal-like state, and I would have to reread that section to grasp the actual meaning of the events.

    A Long Way Gone is a great read, and I highly recommend the book. It is a deep-hearted, first-hand account of a boy's survival and a young man's journey. I would give this book four and a half out of five stars. It is the most emotionally stimulating story I have read, but the lack of emotion and choppy timekeeping denies this book a perfect score.

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    Highly recommended. A must read!

    Most teenage boys are busy getting good grades, growing up, and playing video games; not Ishmael Beah. In his memoir A Long Way Gone, Ishmael recounts his childhood in Sierra Leone. While still being a boy, he has to quickly evolve into a man, a painful and tragic transformation. With vivid description and flowing language, Beah powerfully describes how war changed his life.

    When war reaches Ishmael's area of Sierre Leone, he and a group of surviving friends set out to find safety and their loved ones. After travelling the country, the small group of refugees find safety in a village occupied by the Government Army. Eventually he and his friends are recruited by the army to fight the rebels who had destroyed their homes. Beah expertly describes his experiences as a boy soldier and his transformations between being a civilian and a killer. After all Ishmael went through, it is amazing how he was able to write a book such as A Long Way Gone with little hatred or contempt. In fact, despite the story being subjective, the book contains little emotion. The lack of emotion can sometimes be confusing, as I found myself forgetting that the events actually happened to him. This would cause me to read a passage in a surreal-like state, and I would have to reread that section to grasp the actual meaning of the events.

    The basis of the story is Beah’s survival through war, a theme found in many other books. But what sets this book apart, is that it also shows his rehabilitation after his participation in the war. This reveals two sides to the war: why it was fought, and what happened afterwards. Having Beah’s rehabilitation incorporated into the story allows the reader to see a side of war that few know about. The reader sees that the two sides are different, but both are battlefields in their own right. Despite its unique content, the book is not designed to entertain the reader, more so, the book's main purpose is to show people what Beah went through as a boy soldier. Anyone who reads this book will gain a deeper understanding of what war is like, and how it changes a person. This makes the book even more special because it can correlate to, not just the war in Serria Leone, but to every war. It unveils the horror of battle and its painful changes thrust upon people, battle-hardened and civilian alike.

    The story, as a whole flows very easily, which is a great aspect, despite the fact that some chapters are awkwardly placed. In this way, the story’s flow works against the book, because it causes some chapters to begin or end uncomfortably. This results in an occasional choppy read, as action parts are interrupted or slow parts suddenly jump into fast paced sections. On the other hand, the setting and characters reveal a good amount of Sierra Leone's culture, and the negative impact of the war. The description really helps the reader understand and feel for Ishmael's predicament, an aspect of the book that only a survivor could give. This also makes up for the lack of emotion mentioned before, as the reader unconventionally is required to make his or her own emotions to replace the author’s lack of. However, this book is not immune to criticism. One of the characteristics about the book that really bothered me was the fact that the story never stayed at the same pace. It is in chronological order, but one paragraph might span a few minutes, while the next paragraph happens a few months later. The uneven sp

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    An Intriguing Memoir with a Strong Message

    Ishmael Beah approached this as a time or opportunity where he could tell you of how war is bad and how awfully it can affect everyone. Ishmael is mostly writing towards people who are blind to the affects and to others who have no belief that this ever happened. Ishmael gets a message across of if you don’t give up and you really put yourself to something, you can overcome anything. Affects of war can also tear apart a young boy’s life and a happy family’s too. My opinion on this book is that it gets the point across very effectively and is very well written. I believe this because while I read, I could easily visualize every event and I could believe every word I read. Ishmael wrote his book, not in self-pity, but in remembrance and warning. He remembers his times as a horrendous killer and a monster whom only cared of war, violence, and drugs. He also warns people of the affect of war on children and families in war ridden regions. Ishmael’s memoir is very intriguing to me.
    Another reason I liked A Long Way Gone was the knowledge I gained of how life is in Africa. Learning of new cultures always intrigues me and seeing it in the young eye’s of a boy near my age is amazing. It also makes me want to go and live in their shoes for a while. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like for me. I, personally, don’t think I could handle what Ishmael did so bravely handle.
    This book was simple to read and easy to understand with almost no knowledge on the topic. This book has become a favorite of mine in the world of non-fiction books. It didn’t even feel as though I was reading a non-fiction novel either. That is why most tennagers would like this, serious topic and book, yet you read it as just another story. This book should be recommended in many libraries everywhere, it gives a great message and does so very well. A-

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  • Posted January 29, 2012

    Enlightening

    An awful circumstance often moves the brave to take a stand. But what we should worry about, in the case of Ishmael, is what they stand for. Ishmael, at thirteen years old, decides to don a mask of violence and lose himself in the Sierra Leonean national army. He fights against the rebels, the people who kill his family brutally, leaving him an orphan on the run. In A Long Way Gone, human rights activist Ishmael Beah finds an outlet for an honestly simple story about a child soldier in Sierra Leone-- his memoirs.
    A most truthful book, A Long Way Gone brings up violence in everyday life, drugs, and the pain of remembering. Ishmael’s army days revolve around combat practice, Rambo movies, smoking marijuana, and sniffing “brown-brown”, a mixture made from cocaine and gunpowder. It brings focus to the little people and the people who lose what was left to live in their lives: Children who never get to grow up, children who lose all they have in their personalities to serving the army, babies killed with their mothers, his own family being burned to death in a house minutes before he arrived.
    With this book, Ishmael weaves a strong net of words. The weave of his net is simple, but strong. The net isn’t too small or too large to capture his ideas and actions, and they fill his net with enough raw power and rough emotion to capture the attention of people everywhere. Ishmael’s words are precise, concise, and comprehendible, which makes the book more believable. One could also say it makes it more brutal, because what he describes simply and honestly would make us here in the United States disturbed for a lifetime.
    This book is written “to all the children of Sierra Leone who were robbed of their childhoods.” I believe unless one is willing to read this book, we cannot give them the honor they deserve. In my generation the war in Sierra Leone is vague, as it happened before we could understand what was happening, and in a foreign nation at that.
    If Beah wrote this to bring reverence to the children who never got to enjoy their youth as they should, I daresay he certainly has the respects of many. But being a human rights activist, one could appropriately assume that he’d have also been trying to prevent these horrors from happening to children again. A beautiful wish, though I doubt it’s possible. However, A Long Way Gone leaves a distinct aversion to violence in one’s head, and one would want to join him in his hopefulness.
    The most amazing part of this book is how Ishmael manages to keep the reader focused. For long periods of time, Ishmael isn’t himself. Addicted to marijuana and “brown-brown”, he doesn’t think as himself, the true Ishmael. He’s lost his love of music, his love of being young and carefree, in violence, drugs, and terrible grief and shock. As you read the book, you can see glimmers of Ishmael through the war and that’s what makes you keep reading.
    In a method of storytelling not unlike a professor recounting a reason to study algebra, Ishmael tells his story in the hopes that people will wake up and realize that the war actually happened, and wasn’t off in some distant land no one’s been to or heard of. Little by little as he realizes the need for his dark memories of the war, he moves on from his own troubles to help others. I admire him for always moving on. Though this book didn’t necessarily change my life, it influenced the way I think about foreign issues, and how kids in the United States, including myself, re

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  • Posted January 28, 2012

    Great!

    A Trip Through the Horrors of War A Long Way Gone by Ishamael Beah is a true story about how a his life is turned upside down and he future almost ruined. The primary topic is Ishamael’s account of his life is his time as a boy soldier and the the time he spends trying to get over it. He writes this to show how horrible it is for the boy soldiers. I personally think this book was horrifying because of the topics it addressed and makes me want help the children get out of that life. His story follows his life from the time he lost his family after his village was raided to him going before the UN to tell them about the problems in his country. He tells us of the horrifying things he did as a teen, stuff that even adults would’t do. He tells us of the time they spends wandering though the country side roving from village to village trying to find a safe place for him and his friends hide. Then he goes on to explain the rehab process he had to go through. Most of these thing would have an adult messed up for life much less a teen. It’s amazing to me that he even recovered at all. Ishmael has done much more and seen more than most soldiers will ever see. During his long travels he meets up with many people some new friends, some old friends who travel and survive with him. There were even times they were close to dying or being captured. Often times they would go days without food or water during their long hikes through Sierra Leone. Along the way they would often find some villages and occasionally these villages were razed to the ground by rebel troops or even army troops. The villages were very key to the survival to his group of friends, they would often be there to help them along their way. Every now and then these villages would try and stop them, try to kill them or turn them in. Most of the time they were of a neutral disposition to them, not caring, but not hurting or hunting them down. This book is very well written and very clear in its intentions. The goal of this book is to help stop the African countries from using boy soldiers to fight the wars. It is also to help show that war is terrible thing that destroys families, lives, and countries. He defiantly achieves his goal with this book, he does this by showing us the horrors he endured when he was younger. Yet there is even more to prove the point if it hasn’t already been proven To take his point even further he tells more about the things he has done. He proves his point by describing all of the horrible things he did when he was with the army, from murdering innocent people to executing the captured enemy soldiers in horrific ways such as slashing them with a knife. Another horrible thing that he told about was how the adults in the army were giving cocaine to the children to make them fight better, and the long and difficult process of recovering from the addiction of it. All in all I don't think he really left that much out of his long and hard story. He was a very descriptive writer, but at times he was way too descriptive and it became tedious. All in all I think this was a really well done memoir. I will even give this well written story a nine out of ten, it could be better written at times but overall Ishmael did an amazing job for someone who went through the life he did and wasn’t an author by profession It opens up my eyes to the horrors of our world today. Even with all of the advancements we make there are still countries with savage tendencie

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 22, 2012

    Eye Opening

    Wow. I spent most of the book shaking my head back and forth and simultaneously wiping away tears. Even parts that made me smile were punctuated with tears. This is an amazing historical narrative that personalizes a terrible terrible civil war.

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