ipl-logo

Book Review Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1006 Words5 Pages

For this month’s SSR I read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. The author is Ishmael Beah and the publisher is Sarah Crichton Books. The copyright date is 2007 and there are 218 pages in this book. The genre of non-fiction is autobiography. It is in Ishmael Beah’s point of view. The information is organized in chapters. The events are told in the chapters in chronological order. Each chapter describes a part of Ishmael’s journey during the war. There is not a table of contents or index.
The book starts out when Ishmael, his brother, Junior, and his friend Talloi go to Mattru Jong for a talent show. When they arrived there, the rebels attacked. During this time, Ishmael experienced what the war felt like for the first time. Ishmael …show more content…

However, many people died during the attack. Next, there was the separation of Ishmael and his friends. When Ishmael and his friends were staying in the village of Kamator, the rebels attacked. This caused Ishmael to become separated from his friends. The attack was too sudden for Ishmael to go look for his friends. He learned how to survive by himself. Soon after, Ishmael met up with a group of boys his age. Like him, they were also running away from the war. There were six boys and their names were Alhaji, Saidu, Musa, Kanei, Moriba, and Jumah. The boys and Ishmael became friends and traveled together. However, while they were traveling, several villages thought they were fighting for the rebels so the villagers ran away or questioned them. After that, Ishmael and his group of friends arrived at a village guarded by army soldiers and joined the army. The lieutenant chose several boys to fight in the war. Ishmael and his friends were chosen. They were taught how to shoot a gun and other military exercises. Their first mission was to ambush a group of rebels. During the ambush, many people from both sides died, including Musa. Also, during this battle, Ishmael killed several rebels. He started to know what is was like to

Show More
Related

Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

355 Words | 2 Pages

The book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a memoir about himself involved in war as a child. War began happening in Ishmael’s hometown in Sierra Leone, which was Mogbwemo, so everyone broke apart and he lost his family, except for his brother. He had to start running away from the war to stay alive, so he went with some of his friends and his brother into different provinces of Sierra Leone. They went from village to village looking for food, shelter and safety. Ishmael was caught many times by the army and he thought he was stuck with them forever, but he escaped many different ways.

Read More

Fahrenheit 451 Chapter 1 Dialectical Journal

1290 Words | 6 Pages

Chapter 12 starts out very gruesome, which I feel is foreshadowing in a way. It shows us what this war was really like, through our own eyes. I feel that the “secure village”, is a false sanctuary. A place that refugees of the war can go to and try and have a normal life, but it gives them false hope. A hope that is soon destroyed.

Read More

A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

251 Words | 2 Pages

A Long Way Gone is a book about the life of a boy living in Sierra Leone who takes part in the war that has been happening around him his whole life. This is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah on his life. This book was written to show how wars today are fought by children and how traumatizing it can be to a child. The book starts out with Ishmael living in Mogbwemo with his mother and brothers.

Read More

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier

1294 Words | 6 Pages

6 PG. 37) Also another main focus could be, just because something you been through was bad, doesn’t mean that effect would be negative. Meaning, Ishmael didn’t know what to expect once becoming a boy soldier. However he was given drugs at a young age, to let nothing bother him and stopping him from doing his duties.

Read More

Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

579 Words | 3 Pages

A Long Way Gone is a memoir written with Ishmael Beah’s memories of the civil war that happened in his hometown, Sierra Leone. Beah’s determination for survival and use of descriptive imagery of the war gives us a chance to feel like we’re actually in the war with him. Ishmael Beah was only a twelve year old boy when the war came to his village. Because he lost his family in the war, Ishmael had to learn how to survive on his own along with some other boys. Together, they took care and watched out for each other in the wilderness while trying to find a safe place to hide from the rebels, the people attacking their country.

Read More

Similarities Between Night And A Long Way Gone By Elie Wiesel

787 Words | 4 Pages

Later, the soldiers told Ishmael and many other people they had a choice to be in the army or to go out on their own. Ishmael feared if he did not become a soldier he would end up getting killed by the rebels. This fear reflected his decision on becoming a solider. “The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water. My mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed.”

Read More

The Responsibility Of Ishmael Beah's Attacks In Sierra Leone

338 Words | 2 Pages

An autobiography, of which Ishmael Beah unwillingly becomes a child solider due to a civil war that has arisen in Sierra Leone. Before the attacks had happen, Ishmael and his elder brother Junior had gone from home to perform Rap in Mattru Jong with their friends. Not long after their arrival, news of the rebels had come to their attention having raided their home town and no sign of their families being unscarred from the warfare. Ishmael, and his group of friends sought out to travel to each village seeking out their family. However trouble comes across due to the majority of RUF rebel attacks were caused by children around their age, many villagers had no trust for these kids.

Read More

Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1062 Words | 5 Pages

In the memoir A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael undergoes an extreme maturity with the rapid overcome of the war as he is but a young child. At only 12 years old, Ishmael has experienced events that some people in this world will never have to experience in their lifetime. As the generals use vicious tactics

Read More

A Long Way Gone Analysis

1110 Words | 5 Pages

Ishmael is at the rehabilitation center with other boys who were in the war. He discovers some of the boys are fighting for the rebels side, and with partisan views, a huge fight starts. The boys are throwing punches and stabbing each other. Ishmael began kicking a boy that went after him, and then Alhaji stabs him in the back. They both “...continued kicking the boy until he stopped moving”.

Read More

Examples Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1890 Words | 8 Pages

This all began when Beah, his older brother, and a couple of friends decided to leave their hometown of Mogbwemo to go to Mattru Jong to participate in talent show, in which they were going to rap. However, not long after they get there, they receive news that their hometown was invaded by the rebels. Immediately, they decide to go back because their families were there, but are stopped after they encounter many dead and seriously injured people on their way back home. So it is at this point where they come to an agreement that they needed to run away and hope that their family survived. Although this proves to be unsuccessful because Ishmael ends up being separated by his friends and older brother and meets a group kids where they are persuaded into joining the military and become child soldiers.

Read More

The Significance Of My Creative Title A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1212 Words | 5 Pages

He had been chosen to go to the UN to talk about the lives of children in Sierra Leone. His experiences in the New York were quite a shock to him that he had never experience in his life before. After returning to Sierra Leon, while he was living normal workaday as a student that he was forgotten by the war. All of the sudden, he hears the gunshots everywhere and the rebels and the army collaborated. The foods were taken to the army and now Ishmael faces the war situation again.

Read More

The Theme Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1109 Words | 5 Pages

As they pass through the villages that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have destroyed, they see the destruction and dead bodies left behind: “ The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breath are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs, brain matter comes out of their nose and ears” (18). When Beah and his friends encountered this horrific scene, they were stripped from the peace they have known. They were exposed to the reality and destruction that comes with a war, and instead of living their lives as children, they found themselves trying to survive on a day-to-day basis.

Read More

A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1661 Words | 7 Pages

In A Long Way Gone, “he writes one of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I was not sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again” (Beah, Ishmael 69). Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism. As a victim of the violence, a young man who has lost his family and way of life and is in turn considered dangerous by most of the civilians he encounters, Beah suffers more than simiple physical pain.

Read More

Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1477 Words | 6 Pages

Ishmael’s family and friends choose to ignore war because it is painless for people to ignore their problems than come to terms with the reality of a completely altered future and the risk of lives. Denial from humans occurs periodically, whether consequences arise or not. This characteristic of humanity is existent because people do not want to focus on what rough experiences are to come. Need more analysis. After war eventually struck Ishmael and his village, he and his friends had to learn to survive.

Read More

A Long Way Gone Theme Essay

946 Words | 4 Pages

The major theme in the story A Long Way Gone is that with family and love a person can make it through anything. Overall Ishmael’s story is a very powerful, eye opening read; it informs people on a subject that some know little to nothing about, the civil war in Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.

Read More

More about Book Review Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

Related Topics

Open Document