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Ishmael Beah Themes

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A long way gone, memoirs of a boy soldier, written by Ishmael Beah, the main character himself, is #1 on my list of recommended books for young adults. Through the touching first-person narration, the brutally honest journey has the ability to change an individual. Themes of childhood, war and humanity brings the story to life and has the power to spur growth in readers. Your children will look at the world in a more mature perspective after the eye opening read of the story of Ishmael Beah. Ishmael Beah was only 12 years old when he was first exposed to war, trapped in the Sierra Leone civil war. He was one of the countless victims that were forced to flee their homes and fight for survival. As Ishmael was separated from most of his family, he desperately clung on to his childhood and said, “When I get a chance to observe the moon now, I still see those same images I saw when I was six, and it pleases me to know that part of my childhood is still embedded in me” (Beah 7). The importance of childhood is evident when we are told a story from an individual who has lost his. I believe everyone needs to be reminded of the importance of childhood. The emotional, physical and social developments from one’s childhood experiences can determine the kind of adult an individual will be. Children thrive under support and guidance. Parents are their role models and children are influenced by all …show more content…

A long way gone, despite being a story of destruction, ends on a positive note of rehabilitation. Through UNICEF, an organization that fights for the lives of children, Ishmael was slowly healed, gaining back his humanity and learning to forgive himself. I believe that any student will benefit enormously from reading this story. A true story, told from the heart is hard to find. Giving readers hope that the situation can be improved and change can happen is the perfect ending to an emotional story, filled with realistic hate and

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BOOK REPORT A Long Way Gone Part I: Summary A Long Way Gone is a memoir by Ishmael Beah about his experiences as a child soldier during the Sierra Leone Civil War. The book begins with Beah's childhood in Sierra Leone, where he has a relatively peaceful life with his family until the war reaches his village.

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A Long Way Gone is memoir that was written by a young soldier by the name of Ishmael Beah who was forced into the war raging army for the sake of his protection and survival. Ishmael’s story is full of traumatizing experiences and the violent conflicts that occur in being a child solider. His home village, Sierra Leone, was attached by a rampant group of rebels who were devoted in destroying and killing everything and everyone one in its path. During the time of the attack, Ishmael, his brother, and friends began to wonder off to different villages as a way to escape the rebel’s wrath. Maneuvering from village to village required the group of boys to endure the struggles of finding food, shelter, and safety.

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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.

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564 Words | 3 Pages

A Long Way Gone’s main purpose is hope. This narrative shows the tragic experiences Ishmael Beah had to endure during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ishmeals reframed these events through courage, faith, and belief. A Long Way Gone the story shows that hope is an integral component of survival which is portrayed by Ishmael successfully escaping and enduring the horrific war.

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

Family: You Never Know What You Have Until it is Gone Throughout the memoir “A Long Way Gone”, Ishmael told how he lost his family in war, through this experience he realized that his family is crucial to his happiness and well being, he also learned that he could form other family bonds with different people. “I wanted to see my family, even if it meant dying with them” (Beah 109). The definition of a family is not limited to blood relation, other loved ones can be family as well.

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A fair age to become a soldier In a long way gone written by Ishmael Beah he’s a child soldier and he faces many challenges along the way.

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A Long Way Gone is an autobiography written by Ishmael Beah, the book details his childhood throughout the Sierra Leon civil war. The book shows how you can turn an innocent child into a killing machine. We see both sides of the warring party do this with them drugging the children, turning them against the enemy with propaganda and threatening them with death. These are the factors that made a quarter of all the soldiers within this war under the age of eighteen.

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844 Words | 4 Pages

A Long Way Gone is a true story about the civil war in Sierra Leone that lasted from March 23, 1991, to January 18, 2002. The main character, Ishmael Beah is only 12 years old at the start of the book and he talks about his experiences in a town called Mogbwemo. He lives

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657 Words | 3 Pages

How does one react to facing adversity, well that answer can be found in the book as Ishmael Beah progresses and get older and his actions and thoughts start to gradually change as he gets acclimated to the life of a boy soldier. The actions that Ishmael take throughout the story shape the person who he becomes who overtakes adversity itself. Ishmael and his friends traveled long roads and rivers but along

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536 Words | 3 Pages

I have recently read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a well written story about his transformation from a young boy to a child soldier. He was taken when he was just a little boy, still enjoying his childhood and forced to fight and murder people. This isn’t the only transformation that I have seen when reading this amazing story. I see his transformation from a child to a soldier and a soldier to a civilized adult, something he struggles with a lot. In this essay, I will be telling you about the transformations I seen while I was reading this novel.

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607 Words | 3 Pages

How would you feel if you were recruited as a soldier during war? Since 2001, the participation of child soldiers has been reported in 21 on-going or recent armed conflicts in almost every region of the world. The importance of this is portrayed in Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone. The author believes that innocent kids should not be selected to fight as soldiers, lose their innocence killing people, witnessing violent scenes and suffer because of war.

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1572 Words | 7 Pages

At the age of 13 till the age of 16 the author, Ishmael Beah, pulls himself through many terrible conflicts in Sierra Leone. The author uses conflict to show his readers the realism of his story. By using conflict in many different ways, it allows readers to gain an understanding of how Ishmael struggles changed his life for worse and for better. By using person vs person, person vs society, person vs self, and person vs nature conflict the author is opening doors allowing readers to get a full understanding of Ishmael 's challenges of a life in war. The most commonly seen conflict in ‘A Long Way Gone’ is person vs society.

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703 Words | 3 Pages

In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael becomes a child soldier at the age of 12 for the governmental team the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in order to fight the Revolutionary United Front. Ishmael goes from being a regular kid who liked to spend time with his friends

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834 Words | 4 Pages

A Long Way Gone: War and Rehabilitation Following the life of Ishmael Beah in his autobiography, A Long Way Gone, readers experience how a young boy adjusted to drastic changes in lifestyles. The first- and perhaps more marked- change in lifestyle was when he became a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Army. The second was when he was taken away to be rehabilitated by UNICEF. Although there are several important components in both Ishmael’s life at war and his life during rehabilitation, it is his relationship with fear, how he deals with trauma, and his character in general which significantly share resemblances in each of the two mentioned lifestyles.

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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.

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