I had heard of this book before and was excited when I saw it on our book list, because it's been on my own personal list of books to read for quite some time.
As I read the book, and especially as I got near the end, I was struck with how different the tone was from the beginning of the story to the end. Before the boys are taken by the army, they are still young boys. They cry for their friend Saidu, they play soccer on the beaches....they are very much young boys going through a hell they can't even begin to rationally cope with or understand. There was an awareness as I read the first half of the book at how young these boys are. This awareness didn't necessarily go away when I got to the later chapters, but I found myself thinking that it was as if they had lost their childhood overnight. Suddenly, Ishamael went from being a young 13 year old boy on the run to a 13 year old boy killing and doing drugs. The loss of his childhood was very apparent. It also seemed necessary as a survival tactic: they had to be numb and lose their emotions to do the things they were doing. This was why they were given drugs and movies, why they wouldn't sleep. As long as there was no time to think, they could keep following orders. This was not an environment that childish boys could live in. I felt very sad that Ishamael's childhood had been torn from him like that.
The brainwashing of these children was apparent, for they began to truly identify and take pride in what they were doing. These are kids who have lost everything and finally have someone for whom to blame and take out their anger. They are too drugged up and sleep deprived and afraid to question anything. They belong to this army now. I understood their anger when they were taken away in the truck by UNICEF, for they were leaving behind a place where they felt valued and strong. I was shocked and very saddened when Ishmael announced that Mambu had gone back to the front lines after leaving the rehabilitation center because his family wouldn't take him back. It reminded me of what we learned about girls who had been forced into sex trafficking whose communities would reject them. It creates a cycle where the only way to survive is to go back to the horror they came from.
I couldn't believe that boys as young as seven and eleven would be forced to go to the front lines, when they weren't even strong enough to hold guns. That was really hard for me to read.
I can't imagine going through the amount of loss that Ishmael experienced at such a young age. He not only experienced the death of his family, but also the loss of his community, his childhood, and his friends along the way. Each time he said goodbye to someone and then mentioned that he never saw that person again, my heart broke a little more. How does someone go through that much pain and still allow themselves to love and build friendships and form attachments even when everything they've been attached to or everyone they've loved has been taken from them? It shows a real resilience and strength of character that he could keep going and not only survive, but go on to help others who have been in similar situations. I was very glad he still had an aunt and uncle to go to, a place where he could have some familial attachment.
In his Acknowledgements at the end of the book, Ishmael mentions that he is now living a "second lifetime" and after reading what he went through, that statement definitely rings true. I'm so glad that he got out and became a storyteller, that he is able to share his experience with people like myself who are so ignorant about things like this. Again, I am forced to look at my own life and realize how lucky and fortunate I am that I live in a peaceful place. So much of what Ishmael went through was completely out of his control, and it made me see how much control I have over my own life, and how I live in luxury compared to the day-to-day survival he had to go through.
What's really sad is that these were just young boys fighting young boys. The idea that "rebels are evil and must be killed" was being forced upon them so much these boys internalized those beliefs and made them their own. Those beliefs were so deep that even without the presence of their commanders in the rehabilitation center, the boys fought to the death upon finding out they were sharing the same space as rebels. And they were happy with their kills. That is a forced idea on kids who are too young to question what they are being told. But sadly, doesn't all war come down to that? The young fighting each other in wars they might not even understand?
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