A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
“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.
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- ISBN: 9780374105235
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387 Reviews
| From: Amazon Posted: May 20, 2008 Type: User Review |
Moving, powerful, beautiful
Everyone needs to read this book. Beah speaks with an honesty that is rarely seen and a conversational manner that takes readers into his world. I am an English teacher and I would like every single student to read this book.
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 5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: May 17, 2008 Type: User Review |
Awesome Book
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is one of the most awesome and moving stories I have ever read. I knew it would be even before I bought the book. I could hardly put it down. I would recommend it to anyone who has compassion for the human race...
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: May 03, 2008 Type: User Review |
A Long Way Gone
This book tells a story that the world has not heard about the life of a child soldier. Some of it is shocking to say the least, but it needs to be read and understood. Get a box of tissues and settle in on a wet day.
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 4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: May 02, 2008 Type: User Review |
We are Sheltered
We are so sheltered in the US -- it's amazing what this young man had to endure and that he was able to rise above all the horrible things and really make something of his life.
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4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 22, 2008 Type: User Review |
too matter of fact?
When reading this book, one must keep some distance between oneself and the narrative, to not be overwhelmed by the horrors that are described. Fortunately, the writing style helps the reader maintain this distance. Writing in a very matter of...
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4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 21, 2008 Type: User Review |
Should be required reading
This book was an eye opening dipiction of the life of a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Beah's novel shows the journey that this young man took from being forced to fight in a war that robbed him of his innocence to his ultimate rehabilitation....
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 19, 2008 Type: User Review |
A Reality Check on one's worldview
A Long Way Gone is one of the few books I have read in one sitting. This memoir is a glimpse of what is happening under our noses in the world during the last decade. Too often isolated from unreported terrors and the horrors of civil war, Beah...
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 17, 2008 Type: User Review |
From the Heart!
If you don't feel moved to activism at the reading of this book, you must be dead. Beah tells his story with gripping truth that will hold you to the pages and leave you with a terrible sense of sorrow for the lost children. I'm a teacher and THIS...
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 05, 2008 Type: User Review |
War at its worst
Great read. We all need to be made aware of the atrocities that war brings, especially in the eyes of children, our most precious assets.
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 04, 2008 Type: User Review |
A Long Way Gone
"A Long Way Gone" is an extremely interesting book written by Ishmael Beah a former child solider that fought in the war in Sierra Leone. The book follows Ishmael through his life at the beginning of the war depicting the terrible things that were...
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5.00/5 |
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