I read Sold by Patricia McCormick and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. Ms. Onsrud read Sold and posted about it a while back so I'll refer you to that post. I really liked this book although it was a bit hard to take because of the treatment of the girls.
Long Way Gone was also excellent. It is a story of Ishmael, a 13-year-old from Sierra Leone who is forced into becoming a boy soldier for the government. (I had always thought it was only the rebels that pressed boys into service!) This is a memoir so it is Ishmael's remembrance of what happened to him between the ages of 13-18. It's heart breaking and also raw. (He does state in the book that he has a photographic memory so it would seem that the events he describes are pretty accurate.)
The book begins in Ishmael's village in Sierra Leone and takes the reader through the horrific tragedy of civil war. It ends in another country but in between, Ishmael has to come to terms with feelings of guilt and the psychological flash-backs that war can incur.
I'm thinking that this would be an excellent Cafe Library book.
BTW, this is a 2008-2009 Battle of the Books book.
3 comments:
As Ms. Bade said, I read Sold and loved it. The accounts of what happens to the girls is raw, but that's what I liked about it - it didn't sugar coat things.
I really want to read Long Way Gone based on your post. Is there a movie based on Ismael's memoir?
I did a brief search, and it doesn't look like there is a move...yet. I'm wondering if there will be...I think it would be good on the big screen.
I agree, it would be great if this book became a movie. It would be a really intense movie.
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