A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

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Amnesty International currently estimates that there may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers fighting in different wars across the world. When Ishmael Beah was 13, his family was killed during Sierra Leone’s civil war, and he was forced by the army to become one of these soldiers. Fortunately, not only was he able to escape, he has also written one of the most highly acclaimed books of the year, a memoir of his experiences.

A Long Way Gone is first a story of the absolute worst of humanity, as Beah is forced to kill “more people than he can count” smoking marijuana, snorting “brown-brown,” (a combination of cocaine and gunpowder) and watching violent American films with his fellow child soldiers, all to numb his mind to the horrors he is surrounded by -- before he turns 14. When he is rescued by UNICEF, and especially when he flees Sierra Leone for America, the story turns hopeful as he struggles with returning to civilization, something he is still struggling with.

Today, Beah still suffers from memories and bad dreams. "But I've come to terms with them because my life before the war, during the war and after the war all makes me who I am today -- whether I like it or not ... It makes me appreciate life more and it gives me the strength and the passion to do certain things.”
Beah also found strength from Laura Simms, a New York divorcee who met him in 1996 when he was brought to the United Nations' International Children's Parliament to speak about child warriors -- a worldwide crisis that's affected an estimated 300,000 children. Sims befriended Beah, sent him money and made it possible for him to immigrate to the United States after he'd returned to Sierra Leone and faced the risk of being re-recruited as a killer. Beah calls her his "mother."

Here is Beah, reading an excerpt from A Long Way Gone:

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