“Hope has a voice.” Ishmael Beah was eleven years old when the civil war in Sierra Leone spread to his area of the country. In the commotion of running from the rebels, he lost his family and later finds out they are dead. After wandering the jungles of Africa for two years, he finds some friends and is picked up by the national army, the ‘good guys”. After three years of fighting, hopped up on “brown- brown” and cocaine, he is taken to a recovery facility by UNICEF, and later moves in with his uncle. After going to a conference for the United Nations in New York City, he finds his way to a final safety from the civil war.

Over 300,000 child soldiers are part of over 50 conflicts world wide, most don’t tell their stories about the hardship and war they see. I highly recommend this book because it is one of a kind; there are no other books similar to it. A long Way Gone is an addictive book; I never wanted to stop reading it. In everyday life I don’t hear about conflicts happening in Africa, let alone individual hardships, but this book let me see how hard life really is in a civil war, and how it can hurt an individual. Now, whenever I hear about African civil wars, or any war, I feel really bad because I know that someone is probably suffering just like Beah did, or worse. This book will cause the reader to feel emotions the reader doesn’t think a book can make the reader feel.

Created by: Lauren Starks, October 31, 2007

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