Excellent Book!!

I finished reading A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone during the 90s.  It is his memoir, but more than that, it is a book that raises awareness of the plight of children who are forced to “grow up”–and kill–in completely destabilized African nations.

This is probably the best book I’ve read in a long time…upon finishing I just felt like an awful human being.  Awful, because when I was 12, I was upset because my mom wouldn’t let me “sleep-over” at a friend’s house…at 12, Ishmael lost his family in a rebel attack on their village, sending him on a hellish journey for the next five years of his life.

Now, at the approximate same age as Ishmael, I have not a  single life experience in common with him. I can thank God that I’ve never had to kill anyone for anything, and this is something I’m sure he lives with today and for the rest of his life. But…he, at 28, with this book, with his speeches at the UN, and with his involvement in Human Rights Watch, is doing so much to bring awareness to the children that continue to be forced into fighting wars, that it is clear he was spared for a reason.  I am thankful that Ishmael survived, and came back from the most wicked edge of humanity to write this book, so gripping in its details that I could not put it down.

Read this. If you are anything like me, you will want to gather the children to you (ALL of them, in every war-torn country you’ve ever heard about) and shield them, before their childhoods are taken in such horrific ways. You will be haunted, but the time spent reading will be worth it.