Right On: A Long Way Gone (Memoirs of a Boy Soldier) by Ishmael Beah

Peer pressure got to me again.  I kept seeing A Long Way Gone on friends' desks and counterspaces until I ran across the book at a book sale in Athens at the local library.  The author, Ishmael Beah, had recently spoken at Ohio University and a vaguely remembered seeing flyers posted for the discussion, but I was unable to attend.  A year after letting the book ferment in my classroom (a couple of students did pick it up and check it out from my little library), I brought it home with my crate of library books and put it on my summer reading list.   

After reading I Am A Seal Team Six Warrior (I blogged about this a few weeks back), I was interested in reading more about some of the chaos in Africa (insert TIA song by K'Naan here (unedited)) since I knew very little about what actually led up to the issues in such places as Liberia, Sierra Leone, & Somalia.  Beah, a Sierra Leonean, begins his story with the first day he remembered the rumors about rebel fighting and the rebels dispersing people within his village--essentially leaving him without family.  It seemed that every time Beah thought he could get back to a normal state, then suddenly rebels would show up, hack some people up, give themselves high-fives and brag about the slaughterings.  Beah, who is only 12 at the beginning of the story, becomes a refugee wandering and at times running through the wilderness with a handful of his buddies and his older brother.  He stumbles across small groups of refugees and some embrace the boys and others view them with disdain.  Many are afraid that the boys are really just rebels waiting to take advantage of them.  One town even takes away their shoes and chases them away across sand that burns their feet and leaves them incapacitated for more than a week. 

Eventually, the boys get taken in by a village and they are cared for and help out accordingly.  The rebels begin to attack the village and the village assembles a guerrilla force to take on the rebels, which is led by a general of some sort (his origins are pretty vague and downright questionable).  The boys, seeing little to lose, are conscripted into the makeshift army. Within the army, the boys take the rebels on with the aid of AK47s, G3s, machetes, marijuana and "brown brown" (a gunpowder & cocaine mixture).  The drugs keep the boys dependent on the army for the adrenaline high, the violence and then they aren't worried about what's to eat-- since food is so scarce. 

The boys continue to kill and be killed by the rebels and are fueled by their personal losses of family and friends.  After a considerable amount of time on drugs and ransacking rebel forces, a handful of men from the UN show up at the camp and talk the with the general.  The boys are shuttled of with the strangers and have their guns taken away.  Only after the boys are in the city at a rehabilitation clinic for a  while does Ishmael realize that he's being forced to undergo treatment for being a childhood soldier.  He does a nice job expressing his naivete through describing his thoughts and frustrations at being left out of the loop, after being forced into an adult role of taking lives and caring for himself. While it would seem that the violence would end with Beah's rehabilitation, it's really just becomes the beginning of the war within the city-- which had previously been confided to the outlying areas.  With Beah's rehabilitation and his realization of his lost youth, Beah is again forced into an adult role in that he takes on living with his uncle's family and he also becomes a representative to the UN for the needs of the war-torn children, particularly the child-soldiers.

Beah's lot does improve, but only after a few more twists and turns as he tries to evacuate the country, realizing the risk at which he was putting his uncle's family if he remained in their home.  His willingness to speak honestly and to reflect on his previous immaturity and selfishness create bonds which later come to his aid and while make his story so compelling.  This book would be a fabulous book for anyone who considers him or herself an advocate for social change-- particularly if it involves working with disenfranchised youth.  

Just Another Teen Dystopia? (The Giver by Lois Lowry)

I'd heard of the book The Giver for years.  And for years I just couldn't quite hype myself up to read it, so I put it on my reading to-do list for this summer and I finally did it.  I've had several people recommend it to me, but of course, now I can't remember who-- which is probably for the better because I may just give him/her a hard time about it.

I thought there were some interesting ideas going on within the book, which I did appreciate.  The main concept is that all hazards of life have basically been eradicated, leaving the citizens with practically no choice.  I guess I immediately saw it as the age old debate from Judeo-Christians regarding free-will and whether or not free-will exists (or if God has taken away free-will--- particularly when looking at stories like that of Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of Christ). I liked this aspect of the book, but because the book seemed geared for an 8th grade reading level (and thus audience?), I felt that I may have been pulling a bit more out of it than the average reader would have pulled from it. The society within the book determines how many children will be birthed and kept, who is eligible to raise these children, who each person may marry (if anyone), the occupation of each person and finally, everything is viewed only in shades of the black/white scale (unless a character does something to overcome this-- which a few do).

The main character is Jonas and his story begins with him preparing for the ceremony during which he'll receive his occupation.  He has a few friends, a male and a female, with which the audience is able to see what a "normal" occupational selection would look like, because Jonas's is anything but.  Instead of having his occupation selected and being recognized, Jonas is "passed over" and then he is recognized specially at the end of the ceremony by being chosen as the "Receiver of Memory."  This means that Jonas will begin to report to the "Giver of Memory" in order to receive the collective memories of the society-- i.e. war, pain, love, etc.  

As Jonas begins his new job, he receives new rules by which he must live-- and some of these go directly against how he's been raised.  For instance, he's now encouraged to lie if necessary and to ask anyone any question.  These rules and the new job brings about a new awareness for Jonas, which is classic of coming of age stories like this.  Jonas is also increasingly drawn to the baby which his father has brought home since Jonas's father is in charge of the newborns.  This new awareness and the realization that the baby, which the family has taken to calling Gabriel (even though the baby shouldn't have a name yet because it's against policy), means that Jonas builds a particularly strong bond with Gabriel and Jonas ends up kidnapping Gabriel because Jonas realizes that his father will be putting him to death in the morning. 

I liked the action and the ease of the language, but I couldn't help but be put off by the ending.  I was just left with too many questions and an overwhelming feeling of incompleteness.  While I liked the book in that it would probably be a great book to use for a discussion group-- especially one that may connect with philosophy or religion-- I haven't found myself recommending it to anyone.