A Long Way Gone

The book, “ A long way gone,” is written by Ishmael Beah and it is one of the most gripping book of all times. This book describes the actual horrors of civil wars within Africa and how it truly affects a country and its culture. This is not just a typical war that is envisioned in America, but is a war which tears a country apart and its citizen's lives. It is the account of happenings in the life of Beah which is unimaginable in the world of today. This is a gripping story of a 12 year old boy's experiences of growing up in the 1990s in Sierra Leone during the most violent and brutal civil wars in the history. The major theme of this book and its central idea is that war is hell.

This book is the recount of the real events which has been expressed from Beah's personal point of views. This memoir narrates his life's story as he is torn from his quiet life, is separated from his family and friends and is forced to become a child soldier. The story demonstrates how war can become a hell for the individuals, their families and the entire nations. How children are forced into drugs, abuse and slavery and are brainwashed to believe that this is how life is spent. Most of the children are forced to fight with weapons; others enlist "voluntarily" because they see no other alternative to survive than to participate in the war. The reasons for this "volunteering" is the lack of prospects of finding a job or educated, or simply the desire to leave the violent environment inside the home (lehigh.edu). Revenge plays an important role when, for example, some family members have been killed during an armed conflict. "I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end..." — Ishmael Beah

Today, around the world, children are being brutalized and callously used. It is estimated that over 2 million the number of children killed in situations of armed conflict, more than 6 million children rendered permanently disabled. More than 250,000 of them will continue to be exploited as ...