Review of A Long Way Gone

When I began reading the book I had realized that I had seen a movie similar to this. I am not sure if it was a movie based on this book or just a movie that was about boy soldiers. I have always been kind of in shock when it comes to reading or watching things on this topic because you can just imagine what all those children must be going through at such a young age. At a very young age they are torn apart from their families either because they are killed, taken away, or even worse because they themselves killed their parents and siblings. I wonder how much fear, frustration, and hopelessness these children must feel to be put in such a position where their lives depend on killing their own parents. Now, I have always thought that these kinds of Rebels that recruit children are heartless evil human beings because of all the corruption and suffering that they are causing to all these villages and families. But whenI listened to an interview with Ishmael Beah on an African radio station I found out something that I never really thought about and that was why these rebels recruit children. They recruit children because they can be psychologically manipulated more easily than an adult and since most of these children have been left as orphans they know that they have nothing else to live for so they eventually become these killing machines. Children will do things that sometimes adults don't have the guts to do themselves. Eventually these children didn't even know what it was to actually kill someone because it became a routine and as common as drinking a glass of water. This story is very inspirational because Ishmael having experienced all this was able to survive and better his life whether by destiny or luck. Unfortunately, I am sure there were children that didn't survive this and children possibly still experiencing this and these are the children that we need to save from that. Every child had the right to be a kid and not have to be a boy soldier or be exploited.