In A Long Road Traveled by Ishmael Beah, Beah shares his heartbreaking experience as a child growing up in Sierra Leone. He overcomes many changes and obstacles throughout his book. Most notable is how he goes from being a child soldier to being an active person in society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay At the beginning of the book, Beah talks about his simple, uninterrupted life as a child growing up in Sierra Leone. “The morning we left for Mattru Jong, we loaded our backpacks with notebooks of lyrics we were working on and filled our pockets with cassettes of rap albums.” This shows how simple and innocent he was before the world he knew caught fire and burned in front of him. He later said: "Whenever I have the opportunity to observe the moon now, I always see the same images that I saw when I was six years old, and it gives me pleasure to know that this part of my childhood is still anchored in me. » This is by far the most important quote in the book. This shows that through everything he has been through, all the trials he has experienced, he realizes that he has been robbed of his childhood experiences. Towards the middle of the book, Beah bounces between refuges (villages or ruined areas) and is instituted by the government army. . It is at this point in his history that he begins to collapse and become trapped in the war against the rebels. Many horrible things happen to him at this point in this sad story. One such moment that stood out to me was when he wrote: “His Adam's apple gave way to the sharp knife, and I turned the bandit on a zigzag edge as I pulled him out. Their eyes rolled back and they looked straight at me before suddenly stopping in a frightening look, as if taken by surprise. » (Pg. 125) He killed a man when he was 12 years old. If that's not the definition of fucked up, I don't know what is. He also states at one point: “We had been fighting for over two years and killing had become a daily activity. I didn't feel sorry for anyone. My childhood passed without me knowing it, and it seemed like my heart was frozen. » (Page 126) Killing has become a common thing for Beah at this point. He was brainwashed into thinking that doing this was normal and right when in fact the opposite was true. At the end of the book, Beah is rehabilitated in a hospital and later becomes a spokesperson for UNICEF. At first he said, “That evening, as I sat on the porch and listened to some boys discuss the volleyball game I had missed, I tried to think back to my childhood, but it It was impossible, because I started having flashbacks of the match. first time slitting a man's throat. The scene kept resurfacing in my memory like a flash of lightning on a dark, rainy night. and reintegrated into normal society. » (P. 178) This shows that he was successful in trying to adapt to a normal life. What's most incredible about Beah's story is how he reentered civil society even after everything he endured. He used drugs, killed people and was shot. He seeks to help the world become a better place. This is admirable in my book, even if the events were not 100% accurate, the message still gets across..