Finished A Long Way Gone!

Finally I finished the book, especially since the ending was great. The war was over and Sierra Leone managed to put down the rebellion. Child recruiting was stopped, and the rebels are now a political party. Ishmael Beah was rescued by UNICEF officers and was later on taken to his uncle's house in Benin, due to all of the violence. He stayed in his uncle's house for a while and returned to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone (quite ironic right?). The town was raided by both the RUF and the government. He later on escaped to Guinea and he flew to the United States, New York to be specific.

Before he came to the U.S., he was called to a UN meeting to talk about his experiences in the war and how it went for him. An interview was set up and he told everything from the drugs that he took - to the people that he slaughtered. 

He later returned to Sierra Leone with Mohammed, his new brother, after he lost his family in the war. But there was a new attack on the way back, this time, it was the Sierra Leonian Army which attacked Freetown. The attack didn't manage to turn into another war though, but it was still scary for the people, especially the one that lived during the civil war. 

Ishmael Beah now lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is now a UNICEF member and a human rights activist in the United Nations. He continues to go through the struggle to make child recruitment history and to have children liberated and free of intense work or serving in the army.

This book was great compared to many books I read. And I was actually interested in this, especially since this is a non-fiction book. I would probably give this a 5 star rating due to the amazing story and its touching feeling to many children who are either living in free countries or child recruiting countries in this world.

Child Soldiers! Hate It!

I'm still on A Long Way Gone, but while I was reading this book, I started to think about something. Something terrible. There were child soldiers in the book and there are still child soldiers in countries today. Think about this! Children that are our age being legally taken away from their families by the government, and are trained to kill people (well, there are ones ho are just crazy and would have no problem killing people). But why would any government not want the children of their people not have a good life and just want them to join the military? That's just messed up and intense for anyone.

As of today, there are only 14 countries that have child soldiers, and the ones who recruit them are mostly the rebels or terrorists in those countries. But that is not enough, there are still many children that have only known how to shoot people. In 2001, the number of countries with child soldiers was more than double of the countries that have child soldiers today. Here is a map of the countries that have child soldiers today.

This was exactly what happened at the end of my reading of this book. He was taken by the government and he was given an AK-47 and expected to go out and kill some rebels. Honestly, the children didn't want to be in the army, but wanted to because the rebels would pay for all the people that they killed and the number of families that they destroyed. He ended up losing his friends, for sometime, and he was alone with a bunch of random children and only some adults that he was sent with. 

In this country, there's something called a shooting license and a legal firearms age. So don't expect us to carry M4A1s and Scars and shooting people. But if you go to the countries that are in red in the map, expect the government to hand you a machine gun or an RPG and to tell you to shoot people. To me, this whole idea of child soldiers is messed up and devastating. I don't want to see people as old as me in the battlefields or me even being in one! It's terrible that this still exists. I actually feel bad for the children that have to spend their childhoods with weapons.

What do you think about child soldiers? Should it be taken out? What do you guys think about the miserable children in these areas?

A Long Way Gone, Continuation

So I guess that the country went in chaos and all that matters now is survival. Ishmael got lost and he couldn't find his brothers or his friends. He went on hungry, tired, and very sad because he thought that no one would be there, due to all of the chaos going on in this country from the war. But at least he found new friends that would help him along the way and hopefully escape this place. He went into the woods and went to many villages to find food, water, and shelter. In 2 of his villages, it seemed as if no one really cared about the rebellions and no one even had the thought of 'will they kill us next?' or 'what should we do when they come?'. There were having parties everyday. The only thing that was able to stop them (for a moment) was the minute when Saidu, one of the boys, died in his sleep, and his funeral. So they left and all of them wanted to stop and cry, except for Ishmael, he wouldn't shed one, he can't. He just had to move on.

Personally, I couldn't imagine this happening to me and I hope that it wouldn't. But i can still relate myself to the author. For example, no matter what happens or what blocks him, he will never give up. I am the same. Send me into a war-zone and I would rather be in a cemetery than kneel before the enemy with my hands behind my head. I am not exaggerating this will happen if i am stuck in the same situation as him. Also, when something bad happens in that kind of place, I will pretty much act like I have a cold heart or am heartless. I normally let all the sufferings pass by and stick to what I have to do. So he and I have some things in common.

One thing that still bothers me is that they haven't even thought about trying to get to a radio station and get help or just contact any rescue team. Also, I am still wondering when he actually gets taken by the government and becomes a boy soldier. Because he and his friends are acting kind of like fugitives that are trying not to get caught.

Child Drafting From a Boy Soldier's Life

So I'm back and I decided to read a non-fiction book for one these few years. The book that I am reading is A Long Way Gone. It is a story about the author living his life as a soldier when he was between 13-16 years old, and how he had to live on as a young military unit before he was sent to the U.S. by the UNICEF organization.

Just for the background, this book was published about 5 years after the Sierra Leone civil war ended. The civil war was a battle between the RUF(Revolutionary United Front, the rebels) and the rest of the government and the United Nations. The rebels planned to take over Sierra Leone and wanted to attack other nations as well, making them 'terrorists' to these nations. The war was over in 2002 and the RUF was eventually a political party and the attacks stopped.

The author, Ishmael Beah, was born in a small town named Mogbwemo, in Sierra Leone. He was one of the child soldiers that were forced to fight against the rebels due to the government's orders. He fought in the war for 3 years and was later on rescued by the UNICEF and stopped at 16 years old. He had no idea how many rebels he shot and he even stated that most of the people he killed were children that were his age that were fighting for the RUF. He now lives in the United states and is now a human rights activist and worked for UNICEF. 

There's even an interview of Ishmael Beah on CBS News to talk about his experiences as a child soldier in the Sierra Leone civil war. Check..It..Out!

Now let's get back to the book.

Even though I only read the first 50 pages of the book, it was still a good book. Also, the action and the violence that was expected in the story-line, started off near the very beginning of the book. Ishmael's friends' teachers warned him and the town that "The rebels had attacked the mining areas in the afternoon. The sudden outburst of gunfire had caused people to run for their lives in different directions" (Beah, 11). That was kind of too early to put gunshots and massacres to these innocent people. But the rebels probably just wanted what was in these places and the resources that can be of use to them.

But the casualties didn't seem as harmful to the people at first, but as they were looking around the town, it was devastating. Anyone that lived there was either taken away as a hostage, a soldier to the RUF, or was just shot dead. The town ended up being deserted and was in ruins. The citizens of Mogdwebo saw many casualties, but Beah only went to detail about two of them. The first one was, when a man tried to escape the town with his family, "The rebels shot at his vehicle, killing all his family" (Beah, 13). vomiting and crying, he laid there due to the loss of his family. The second one was "A woman who carried her baby on her back..."Her child had been shot dead as she ran for her life" (Beah, 13). many more casualties were in that one town. These consisted of parents carrying their dead children, families that were murdered in their houses and more casualties took place. If you were in that place, you would be SHOCKED and SCARED (unless you're a demon's best friend).

To be honest, If a country was allowed to take away boys that were my age to be child soldiers, that would be one country on my list of countries...that I would NEVER go to. I never had thoughts about joining the military or ever will think about doing it. So don't ever ask me if I would even think about joining the U.S. military. I don't want to risk my life for a crazy job like that, especially since I can do other things that would help people that don't need a body-bag in the future. And I bet none of you guys would do any of this either. 

Speaking of child soldier countries. There are still many countries that support this act of dragging children into the military. Many African countries take boys away into the army, the same goes with many Asian and Pacific countries. I don't know about South America, but the only ones that go against this are most of North America, almost all of Europe, almost none of Africa and Asia, and Japan and Australia. This is terrible. Children fighting wars at the age where they should be learning? Why couldn't the world stop this madness? Why is this needed?

How about you guys share somethings about the idea of drafting kids and having children fight this war. Hopefully you guys think this is a terrible act and should be removed.

Review, The Serpent's Shadow

So I'm currently not reading anything because I don't know what to read, especially since I finished all of the books that were like the Percy Jackson books, and that the last book I read, which was Allegiant, had a terrible ending to one of my favorite series by killing off the main character and leaving the city in despair. So, I guess I am going to do a book review of a book that had a FAR better ending than Allegiant, and it is also the last of its series. It's called The Serpent's Shadow.

The book itself was a great book, and the series was good as well. At least it doesn't trash the main character due to his/her death. In fact, all the antagonists either become good people if they were controlled, or they were just annihilated; literally!

It started out as Carter and Sadie just doing the same old, same old by working to get the suidents of the nomes to be safe and to help them become magicians like the two main chartacters and their friends. And then Apophis, the god of chaos strikes back and the world was on the margin of not being obliterated be evile, chaos, death and destruction. They find out that they can bring their mom back. The rest of the story goes on with Carter and Sadie try to find out how they can kill Apophis and their battle with him.

I decided to make this a blog about Fahrenheit 451 because I wanted to take a break on reading my own books that I wanted to read. If you read my previous blog, you kind of know where I am heading with that and why I chose to do this instead of continuing on.

This book was actually good for a book that I am supposed to read for a class. Previously, the books that I was supposed to read were just The Schwa Was Here, The Outsiders (both OK books), Bronx Masquerade, and Whirligig (Both REALLY TERRIBLE books). Also, this book was better than some books that I have read in my own time (except for anything that has any relation to the Percy Jackson series).

What I liked about this book was first, it was a book about burning books and having a society that was messed up. This kind of reminds me of the society in The Hunger Games. People getting killed for the sole purpose of entertainment, no freedom of what you can do, and the fact that people don't know what to do, because of the government. In Fahrenheit 451, the people would run over other people because they don't want to be bored, and they thought that they were happy by just watching TV for the rest of their lives.

Then, Montag came around, and once he met Clarrise, he realized that there was something wrong with this place. He needed to fix this and make it so that people will have freedom and that this chaos will end. It was almost like playing with fire is a good thing, especially when there are books around you and they are supposed to be burnt. Later on, he manages to kill an old lady and he found out that Clarrise's family was taken away.

After Clarrise, the only person he liked, was dead, he met another guy named Faber, who was a retired English professor. He would act like Clarrise in the rest of the book, except he would try to take down the firemen for good and not just change or rehabilitate them. He and Montag would make it a mission to end the unfair torture that the firemen are doing and to take down the government that was behind all of this mess.

The rest of the story is about how Montag tries to get the mission going and what he does to save the people who have a mind, and what the government does to the city.

Finished Allegiant, But really bad ending

DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU READ ALLEGIANT!

That was the worst ending for a book. It seriouslly ends up with most people dying in the book. What's the point of THAT!? It starts with Tori dying in the beginning, then some factionless guards get shot down (ok that was probably a good thing in the book and they actually deserved it). Tris shuts down the city and gets a bullet in her head, the doctors purposefully kill Uriah in front of his parents, and then everyone forgets what had happened in the city and to them. Plus, Tobias goes around like a baby and starts bawling for a year because his girlffriend Tris died in the fight. And I thought he was a man to not do that.

All I can say about this book is that the ending was just complete crap if you ask me about it. Plus, it just puts this series down in a pit of despair for all I care. I mean seriously, the very next page before when the city shuts down, it goes like "The moment Tris falls into the net...." and then Tobias starts to cry. Totally screwed up!

So all I can do is forget it, since it was mostly disappointing to anyone who likes the Divergent series and pretty much threw the book into a hole. Now this COULD be a book that I would like to burn (thinking of Fahrenheit 451), since I don't want this in my sight again.