A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah

I read a great book over my holidays and forgot to write a little review about it. One of the best accounts of the tragedy in Sierra Leon and the use of child solidiers, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a boy solider by Ishmael Beah, Beah recounted his time during the war and his recovery from the experience that he endured.

The book jacket has this to say:

This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped-up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. The UN estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers fighting in fifty conflicts worldwide. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What does ware look like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists and novelists, but few who have endured this hell have told their tales. In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a gripping story: At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was rehabilitated by UNICEF, learning how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity and, finally, to heal.
This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

If you have any interest in understanding the effects that wars have on the young then A Long Way Gone should be included in your reading list. I personally was gripped by the story and am in awe of someone who is able to recount it for all to read. It takes an extremely strong person to share such a disparaging story in all its details.

Give this book a read. If I was a critic I would give it a 5 out of 5.