Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah
When Civil War breaks out in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah loses his family, then, as a twelve year-old, becomes a soldier in the army, where he kills in a drug-fueled rage until he's chosen for rehabilitation through a United Nations program.
A Long Way Gone is a hard book to read. When Ishmael Beah first loses his family and moves from village to village, looking for them and for shelter, he's not much older than Bryce is right now. It's amazing that any boy that age could survive with no one other than other boys for companionship and protection. In some ways A Long Way Gone reminded me of Candide (which I read many years ago and might have a faulty recollection of). Every time I thought Ishmael was coming to the end of his trials (when he found the village where the rest of his family was staying, for example), something worse would happen (the village got ransacked and everyone within it was dead). I'm also amazed that after the years of killing at the slightest provocation, rehabilitation was even possible. It makes me grateful for the stability of our nation, and for the relatively simple childhoods my children are able to enjoy. I also marvel at the strength of the human spirit and for the way that someone who by all accounts should be "broken" was able, with a little help, to turn his life into something great.
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