num_pages: 399
description: My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life."Why did you leave Sierra Leone?""Because there is a war.""You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?""Yes, all the time.""Cool."I smile a little."You should tell us about it sometime.""Yes, sometime."This is how wars are fought by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that 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.
language: English
title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
titlecomplete: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
characters: "Junior" Beah, Jumah, Musa, Esther, Khalilou, Talloi, Ishmael Beah, Alhaji, Moriba, Saidu, Kanei
genres: Memoir, Sierra Leone, War, Biography Memoir, Biography, Africa, Autobiography, School, History, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 184501
places: Sierra Leone, New York City, New York
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: ALA Alex Award, awardedAt: 1262332800000
name: Lincoln Award, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: NAIBA Book of the Year
category: Nonfiction, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award
publisher: Thorndike Pr