A Long Way Gone

For this quarter’s outside reading project, I read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. The main thing that came to my mind was how horrific the sights must have been for him. I would read a bit and when I was done, retrace what happened in my head and imagine if I was Ishmael. It is non-fiction, and it is an autobiography about how he got out of Sierra Leone during the war there during the 90’s. The imagery is so powerful, and to know that this is all true makes you feel even weirder. We all live in a place that is safe from all of those horrors, and it is really hard but necessary to realize what other people, in other parts of the world, have gone through. Most people seeing a dead body in America would be scarred and never be the same for most of their life, and Ishmael is traveling his way through cities with dead bodies all over the place, and severed heads rolling around at his feet. This book really changed my views on foreign places and has taught me some powerful lessons.