The End

Does everyone else agree with me when I say that that has to be one of the most saddest yet most interesting books ever? I don't know about you but I certainly enjoyed it, Ishmael Beah is an inspiration.

- Courtney Leeder

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — As a student at Oberlin College in Ohio, Ishmael Beah didn't talk about his life in Sierra Leone as a boy soldier who was forced to kill — or be killed.

"I knew I couldn't forget my past," he says. "But I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to be fully present in my new life."

At 26, Beah has written a chilling yet lyrical account of his old life. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $22), out today, describes how at 12, his parents were murdered by rebels and he was swept up in a civil war for more than three years.

It's the second, somewhat surprising selection of Starbucks' book program (after Mitch Albom's novel For One More Day) and will be sold in the chain's 6,500 stores.

The book's roots go back to a fiction workshop at Oberlin, where Beah's teacher, novelist Dan Chaon, told him, "You either have a sick imagination or this stuff is true."

Beah says he can't prove it's true — except "to show you my scars" or to introduce another refugee from Sierra Leone in New York whose fingers were chopped off by rebels during the war.

The book describes how Beah and other youngsters, armed by the Sierra Leone Army, were fueled by revenge and "brown brown," cocaine mixed with gunpowder.

At 14, he executed rebel prisoners: "I shot them on their feet and watched them suffer for an entire day before finally shooting them in the head so that they would stop crying."

He came to see his story as part of something bigger and hopes readers won't dismiss it "as some strange thing they do in Africa. Given the circumstances, everyone is capable of it. It's part of our humanity to lose our humanity and also eventually to regain it."

Beah lost his childhood, then found it — thanks to a woman in New York he calls "my mom," or "my new mom," although he has not been formally adopted.

"I don't feel we need a legal paper," says Laura Simms, 59. "African storytellers use an expression: their 'heart's son.' This young man is my heart's son."

They met at the U.N.'s International Children's Parliament in 1996, after Beah was "repatriated."

Simms, a professional storyteller, was hired to work with the delegates. Beah, who comes from a "very storytelling-oriented culture," was impressed by the white storyteller from New York.

They stayed in touch after he returned to Sierra Leone. In 1999, after a coup plunged the country into chaos, Beah found a Red Cross center relaying messages outside the country — but only to relatives.

Simms says the call came at dawn: "Your son is alive."

She says she almost said, "But I don't have a son." Instead she asked, "Where is he?"

"Sierra Leone."

"Oh good," she said, knowing who it was without asking.

Simms helped Beah immigrate, found him financial sponsors, got him into high school and gave him the first books he ever owned, including his prewar favorite, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

She didn't ask him questions about the war: "He needed time."

He says she gave him "a new life. Not many people get that."

Presentation

Hey guys! I can't open the file with what we are going to say on Monday but like I just wanted to through out an idea. When we start talking about how the movie Blood Diamond relates to "A Long Way Gone", we can say that it relates to it since the movie gives more background information on what was happening in Sierra Leone, and it also gives another perspective on families being separated since a father in the movie was separated from his family, just like Ishmael. I'm not sure how we can expand on it but that's just a start.

Also, I don't really know what you guys want me to do, so it wouldn't be an issue if I tried making the slideshow; I can find sound effects and everything but it just depends if my PowerPoint is working. Hopefully it is, so I can work on that this weekend and have it ready by Sunday night/Monday.

- Ki-Jahna Crossman

A Long Way Gone Review

The Pathfinder: A Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 1 Issue 1 January 2009

Beah, Ishmael, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, New York, 2007.  Marianne Taflinger

 What is it to be a child caught up in the confusion and chaos of war? Ishmael Beah tells the harrowing tale of his experiences of the civil war in Sierra Leone as hapless victim and then victimizer as a child soldier for the government. The book powerfully evokes his confusion and the shifting alliance of townspeople who fear the roaming band of boys. The work is important because it demonstrates both how children become the tools of war and how armed conflict devours their spirit and fuels their resolve as a group. Finally, it exposes the moral decay of both sides of this conflict The book deftly conveys the growing sense of unease, paranoia and terror of the boys. One kindly neighbor says: "This country has lost its good heart. People don’t trust each other anymore. Years ago, you would have been heartily welcomed into this village." But the total breakdown of the social order is depicted in ways great and small. Marauding bands of boys unite for protection, but peril exists everywhere. The book is particularly effective in depicting Beah’s reaction when he discovers that his family has been burned alive in their house. He writes, "My head was burning, as if on fire." This triggers further violent reaction in him. He and his friends are inured to seeing people left with just thumbs because their fingers had been cut off with machetes. Beah’s account of how the government troops exhort them to commit violent acts portrays textbook examples of brainwashing and the propaganda that creates killing machines. For example, they explain: "That is why we must kill every single one of them. Think of it as destroying a great evil. It is the highest service that you can perform for your country." The boys are taught how to use AK-47s, how to stab banana trees with bayonets while "visualizing the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents." To further feed this murderous rage, they receive a steady diet of war movies, marijuana and a type of cocaine called "brown brown." But the opposing side is just as brutal, once the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) captured Beah and his friends, promising to annihilate an entire village in front of both the children and government forces that arm them, exhorting them to commit greater violent acts. ‘A Long Way Gone’ tells a riveting, gut-wrenching tale of how children caught up in a confusing, morally ambiguous struggle for survival become killing machines. For me, reading this book is to live inside the nightmare of war and grasp the difficulty of rehabilitating children for whom violence becomes normal and expected. P.W. Singer’s ‘Children at War’ documents the facts of child soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. Singer details the many advantages child soldiers have, but Beah’s book shows you what these children see, how their hearts and minds are twisted, what they feel, and the terrible toll that the loss of their humanity takes on them. Beah tells an unapologetic and unsentimental story of his participation in gruesome acts, as well as his rehabilitation and escape to the United States. More of the book is devoted to events before becoming a child soldier and the account of his rehabilitation and escape to New York passes rather quickly. To this reviewer, the emphasis seems warranted. Gandhi once said that men could be persuaded to eradicate evil so long as you were able to get them to pay attention to it. ‘A Long Way Gone’ shows how child soldiers can be created, captured and reprogrammed to be children once more, when the world intervenes to stop this evil.

I don't know if you guys will be interesed, but heres the link to A Long Way Gone's official website. Just thought I'd share incase any of you want to browse it. Enjoy -http://www.alongwaygone.com/ishmael_beah.html

- Courtney Leeder

What If You Could Never Forget

On page 51 Ishmael talks about how his grandfather used to make him and his brother drink a special medicine to help them obtain knowledge in school. He says that he now has an excellent photographic memory that enables him to remember day-to-day details of his life. This would definitely have to be the worst case scenario of his situation, going through all that trauma and seeing so many unpleasant things and never being able to forget them? What if you went through what he did and could never forget any of it...

- Courtney Leeder

I've been meaning to make a comment about this part in the book for awhile now, it is the starting of chapter seven when Ishmael is describing the attack on the village he was staying in, Kamator. Did anyone else kind it extremely symbolic that when the rebels came during their prayer, the imam didn't stop for a minute to escape to safety? But rather was captured by them and once he refused to tell them what they wanted they bounded his feet and hands and tied him to a post, setting fire to his body. Not only is that an extremely honourable thing he did, risking his life for the safety of others but it is also a horrible thing to have witnessed on Ishmael's part. How can anyone truly recover after seeing something like that at such  young age?

- Courtney Leeder

I was listening to my ipod when the song waving flag came on and I realized that the song is so compatible with the issue of child soldiers. Even the chorus works with the idea of getting out of child soldering. what do you guys think about it.

Keagan Jenson

Chapter 13

I know some of you guys aren't on chapter thirteen yet but when you get there, I found it to be one of the most disturbing chapters I've read in the book. You'll see why.

-Ki-Jahna Crossman

Turns out that Sierra Leone was named after one of it's mountain chains. Sierra means mountain and leone means lion, therfore it is called mountain lion or lion mountain.

Keagan Jenson

10 Conflict Questions

1. What are a few issues with being on the run all the time?
2. Who has separated from Ishmael ?
3. What keeps Ishmael awake at night? What kind of conflict is this?
4. Why are the other citizens of Sierra Leone so hesitant when they see Ishmael?
5. Why do Ishmael and his new acquaintances get stopped by a chief of a village?
6. What sort of conflict is the civil war?
7. When Ishmael and his friends stay at the fisherman's hut, they are forced to leave after two weeks. Why?
8. Before reaching the fisherman's hut, a chief takes the shoes of the children. How does this become an issue for them?
9. How is this issue resolved?
10. How would you react to being a witness to the civil war in Sierra Leone? Do you think you would face the same troubles as Ishmael did?

- Ki-Jahna Crossman

To those in the group that have not already finished the book I have a question for you.
Your going hunting one day and find a monkey with it's back towards you on a tree. You raise your gun to shoot but before you do the monkey says " If you shoot me your mother will die but if you don't shoot me your father will die." Ismael had an answer that touched my heart and I wonder if anyone can guess what his answer was, knowing what kind of person he was.

Keagan Jenson

On Ismael's trip to the capital he went and saw a huge coton tree in town. I decided to look into it and found that it was supposedly the place where a group of former african slaves landed and had their thanksgiving service there in march  1792. The tree is now considered the symbol of Freetown and is still used for prayer today.

Keagan Jenson

10 Characteristics Questions

1. Describe Ishmael's personality?
2. What was Ishmael wearing when he encountered the rebels?
3. What is Ishmael's grandmother like?
4. Describe the rebels attitude towards the boys.
5. Who is the protagonist in this book?
6. Who is the antagonist in this book?
7. What was Ishmael's favorite music as a kid?
8. Does Ishmael's childhood remind you of anyone you know?
9. What age was Ishmael when he first encountered the war?
10.What is Ishmael's brothers name?

-Devon

Hey look what I found, a different book cover for A Long Way Gone...

- Courtney Leeder

Naughty by Nature

This is one of the groups that Ishmael and his friends listened to for their rap group. It helped them learn English, and it's also the song that the chief of Kamator put on to see if Ishmael and the boys were rebels or spies!


Are you down with O.P.P ? :D

Ki-Jahna Crossman

Cassava

The cassava that we hear so much about looks alot like a ginger root, don't you think? I can now see why the don't enjoy eating it raw.

Keagan Jenson

Does the story of Ishmael Beah also remind you of the inspirational speaker Michel Chikwanine, from Me to We last year? Their stories seem very similar in concept to child soldiers...

                                   

  - Courtney Leeder