This book was incredibly powerful and moving to read. I had a hard time reading some of this book
though because I felt devastated for this young boy and knowing that this situation
and sorrow has happened to so many young children in Africa. Ishmael is a very brave young man throughout
this novel and has the courage that many people never have throughout their
entire life. The culture in this novel is
very intriguing, but very depressing as the book goes on. When the book starts, it seems like Ishmael
and his friends have everything they want or need. Their lives seem to be going just fine. I find it funny that they somehow know and
listen to rap music from the U.S. and they can recite all of the lyrics to the
songs and they even dance to them as well.
Unfortunately, this happiness had to come to an end with the war that
was happening in their country. One
thing you can definitely tell throughout this book is that family is a very
important aspect to these people and young people are always expected to
respect their elders. They find their
elders to be full of power and wisdom.
When Ishmael and his brother had to start running from soldiers and
burning villages, it was heartbreaking to have to think about all of these
innocent people who were losing their lives and that the rebels could just kill
people right on the spot and take so many lives. Ishmael and his brother and friends were so
scared at first and they had to deal with not knowing where the rest of their
family was and if they were even alive.
After Ishmael had gotten separated from his brother and he thought he
was going to be reunited with his family again, I was so excited for him and
was trying to read the book as fast as I could because I wanted to see if he
actually did get to reunite with his family.
It literally felt like my heart was ripped out when he could see the
village where his family was and then the rebels burned it down and his whole
family was killed. I couldn’t imagine
being so close to seeing my family again and then having that happen. I would feel like there was nothing left to
live for. It was hard for me to read about
when Ishmael became a soldier because even though the soldiers he was with were
supposed to be the “good solder,” how can they be good when they are forcing young
boys to join their army? How are they
good when they addict these young boys to all kinds of drugs? How are they good when they instill the
thoughts in these young boys heads that it’s fine to kill these people without
remorse because they’ve killed others as well?
It’s very hard to think that these soldiers have any kind of moral
compass when they are turning these innocent boys into killing machines. I was relieved though that Ishmael was able
to get back to being a boy and let a lot of these killer instincts out of his
mind. This culture also robbed Ishmael
and many other boys of their youth and made monsters out of them. They had to be saved and had to be trained to
think like a civilian again which is sad.
Overall I thought this book was very interesting, but it’s devastating
to know that there is an incredible amount of truth to it as well.
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