There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land.
An edition of A Long Way Gone
(2007)
A Long Way Gone
printing (1)
by Ishmael Beah
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This is the story of how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. In more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war 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 have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. Ishmael Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve in Sierra Leone, 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 he was capable of truly terrible acts.
This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
--front flap
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Subjects
United Nations, Africa, biography, Africa, history, Africa, juvenile literature, Africa, west, history, Barnsoldater, Biographies, Biography, Boy soldiers, Children, Child soldiers, Civil war, Historia, History, Inbördeskriget i Sierra Leone 1991-2002, Juvenile, Juvenile Military participation, Juvenile Participation, Kind, Large type books, Military participation, New York Times bestseller, New York Times reviewed, nyt:paperback_nonfiction=2010-10-30, Personal narratives, Reading Level-Grade 10, Reading Level-Grade 11, Reading Level-Grade 12, Social conditions, Soldat, Soldiers, UNICEF, Walkman, cassettes, rap music, Sierra Leone Armed Forces, prisoners of war, cannabis, drug withdrawl, storytellers, Kindsoldaten, 89.76 polemology, Sierra leone, Civil war (sierra leone : 1991-2002) fast (ocolc)fst01721073People
Ishmael Beah (1980-), Ishmael Beah, Junior Beah, Alhaji, Kanei, Musa, Saidu, Jumah, Moriba, Talloi, Gibrilla, Kaloko, Khalilou, Uncle Tommy, Esther, Mambu, Mohamed, Run-DMC, Bob Marley, GasemuPlaces
Sierra Leone, Freetown, United States, Kamator, Mattru Jong, Mogbwemo, New York City, GuineaShowing 10 featured editions. View all 29 editions?
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01
A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier
2009, Douglas & McIntyre
Paperback
in English
- 1st pbk. ed. (5)
155365398X 9781553653981
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02
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03
Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
2008, Harper Perennial
Paperback
in English
0007247095 9780007247097
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04
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
2008, Paw Prints
Library Binding
in English
- First paperback edition (21)
1439514127 9781439514122
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05
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
2007, Fourth Estate
hardcover
in English
- printing (1)
0007797125 9780007797127
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06
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07
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09
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
2007, Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hardcover
in English
- First Edition (8)
0374105235 9780374105235
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10
A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier
2007, Windsor | Paragon
Hardcover
in English
- UK Hardcover Large Print edition
1405619562 9781405619561
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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah, an author from Sierra Leone. The book is a firsthand account of Beah's time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1990s). Beah was 12 years old when he fled his village after it was attacked by rebels, and he wandered the war-filled country until brainwashed by an army unit that forced him to use guns and drugs. By 13, he had perpetrated and witnessed numerous acts of violence. Three years later, UNICEF rescued him from the unit and put him into a rehabilitation program that helped him find his uncle, who would eventually adopt him. After his return to civilian life he began traveling the United States recounting his story.
A Long Way Gone was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2007.
Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2007, ranking it at No. 3, and praising it as "painfully sharp", and its ability to take "readers behind the dead eyes of the child-soldier in a way no other writer has."
A Long Way Gone was listed as one of the top ten books for young adults by the American Library Association in 2008.
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