My new friends have begun to suspect I havenât told them the full story of my life.âWhy did you leave Sierra Leone?ââBecause there is a war.ââYou mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?ââYes, all the time.ââCool.âI smile a little.âYou should tell us about it sometime.ââYes, sometime.âThis 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, heâd 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.
Dimensions:137 x 208
Author: Ishmael Beah
ISBN: 9780374531263
Format: Paperback
Pages 240