Beah, Ismael (2008). A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN: 9780374531263
240 pages
Classification: NonFiction
Genre: Memoir
Age Level: 15-19
Stars: 5 stars
Subjects: War, Soldiers, Death, Family, Relationships, Grief
Reader's Annotation
Ismael Beah tells his true account of growing up, surviving, and fighting in Sierra Leone as a soldier during a brutal civil war.
Summary
At the tender age of 12, Ismael Beah becomes swept up in the civil war in Sierra Leone. He loses his family, is completely alone in the world, and he is recruited in the army. The chilling tale of how he becomes a trained soldier, learns to shoot an AK-47, and becomes a warrior to survive. Reading the boy's transformation from an innocent boy who loves American hip-hop and reading Shakespeare to a casual murderer is horrifying and gruesome. At the age of 15, he is finally brought to a rehabilitation center and he begins a life as a child advocate, but the truly gripping part of the story is the account of his life as a soldier- how he gets wrapped up and consumed by the violence, and how his existence is measured by war.
Notes
The validity of the account based on the dates mentioned as well as some shooting incidents, was questioned, and Ismael Beah responded by releasing this statement.
