{"id":873,"date":"2010-01-25T13:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/?p=873"},"modified":"2010-01-25T13:36:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:36:00","slug":"a-long-way-gone-by-ishmael-beah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"A Long Way Gone… by Ishmael Beah"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I just finished a book called “A Long Way Gone.”<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I have to admit that it was a hard read.  From the back of the book you know right off the start it isn’t a happy story.  Yet I was captivated.  I would pass it on and say read it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This is what Amazon.com said:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“<\/span>This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone’s civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah’s harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces. Beah then finds himself in the army\u2014in a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter that lasts until he is 15, when he’s brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and partnering NGOs. The process marks out Beah as a gifted spokesman for the center’s work after his “repatriation” to civilian life in the capital, where he lives with his family and a distant uncle. When the war finally engulfs the capital, it sends 17-year-old Beah fleeing again, this time to the U.S., where he now lives. (Beah graduated from Oberlin College in 2004.)”<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It was a great read.  I can’t stop thinking of the life this child lead.  I can’t help thinking of my Jordan, Tyler, or Sammy wondering thorough the woods, dealing with the grief of a lost family, suffering from lack of food, water and shelter.  I can’t image my babies lives without us there to guide, nurture and love them.  Then I have to add the horror of being a child solider.  Unbelievable and yet I thank God for giving each of us the strength we need to cope with each of our challenges.<\/span>

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It is a book worth reading.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished a book called “A Long Way Gone.” I have to admit that it was a hard read.  From the back of the book you know right off the start it isn’t a happy story.  Yet I was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livinglovingbreathingboys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}