A Long Way Gone Book Report

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and the other boys of Sierra Leone that were enlisted to fight in the country’s civil war had their lives changed forever. The boys in the village of Yele that were recruited by the army aspired to be vengeful spirits, killing the soldiers of the rebel army that had killed their families and was the cause of their misfortune. Lieutenant Jabati and his men helped the boys to realize their suppressed rage and gave them the training that they needed to fight the rebels. Lieutenant Jabati was a figure of authority for the boys in a time of turmoil and he, along with the more senior soldiers under his command, pushed the boy soldiers to their limit, but he was not harsh with his encouragement. It must be said though, that if the boys were not recruited by the Lieutenant

traumatizing, childhoods, but they were all able to overcome the adversity and strife to document their experience for the rest of the world to read. The first author was a child soldier during the Sierra Leone Civil War, the second author was the second oldest child in a family of poor drifters and believed to never amount to much, and the third author was a little girl caught up in the midst of the agenda of an oppressive government, and yet they were all able to succeed and grow stronger under the tutelage of their respective mentors. Ishmael Beah had Lieutenant Jabati to give him a reason to fight, Jeannette Walls had her father Rex Walls to make her stronger and more determined, and Marjane Satrapi had her mother Taji Satrapi as an example of freedom and just rebellion. All of these mentors strove to help their charges succeed in life, and the hardships that they inflicted upon their charges, whether purposely or accidentally, just drove them even