Introduction
“Terrifying, often graphic in portraying the violence he both witnessed and carried out as a barely adolescent soldier in Sierra Leone, 26-year-old Beah’s story is also deeply moving, even uplifting . . . Reports about child soldiers and the crises in Africa proliferate, but Beah’s story, with its clear-eyed reporting and literate particularity—whether he’s dancing to rap, eating a coconut or running toward the burning village where his family is trapped—demands to be read.” —People
There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words.
In A LONG WAY GONE, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting 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. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, he struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion. This is, at last, a story of redemption and hope.
Task
Before Reading, answer the following questions.
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Process
While Reading, Define the following words.