Nonfiction: Autobiography

Grades: 11 & 12
Author: Ishmael Beah
Title: A Long Way Gone
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Copyright: 2007
Website: A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah Official Site (www.alongwaygone.com)

Voted as one of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults 2008, A Long Way Gone is not for the faint of heart. A Long Way Gone is the true story of Beah's experience as a child solider in Sierra
Leone. He was 12 years old when the civil war in Sierra Leone broke out. He was kidnapped from his family, whom he never sees again, and is recruited into the rebel army (The RTF) that has turned Sierra Leone upside down with violence and genocide. Thrust into a world of violence and drugs, Beah is forced to walk from village to village killing whomever he sees. After awhile it becomes routine; normal, and it is only after being rehabilitated by a UNICEF sponsored group that he is able to escape his horrific world and become a child again. He eventually comes to the U.S. to study and is now a spokesperson/advocate for the UN on child soldiers. As you can imagine there is a lot of objectionable content in the book: drug use, murder/death, rape, etc., but it is a story that must be told and must be read. This is a true story of immeasurable horror and suffering, which will haunt the reader for many days after it is finished.

Watch the following interview with Beah to learn more about the book: YouTube - Ishmael Beah -- Child Soldier (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K4yhPSQEzo)