A Long Way Gone (Final)

Ishamel Beah is now living in Brooklyn New York and has become very successful. He is working for Human Rights Watch Children's Division Advisory Committee. He wants to go to graduate school. He has served as the key spokesperson for some events, like the Global Young Leaders conference in 2007. He is currently 29 and visited his homeland in Sierra Leone with a news group and said that it was a good and bad thing. His book A Long Way Gone has earned an award called the Quill award for the best debut author in 2007.

This is where I found my information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Beah

Double Conciousness

Ishmael is a young boy trying to find his way out of a full grown fighting soldier. This "soldier" was a kid not to long ago. He was forced to become this soldier boy. No body cared how old he was. After the war between the Army and the Rebels had began Ishmael and his friend left, they got sent to this reform housing. Where you get taught how to become a kid again. He was not ready to make this change he was still a soldier at heart that is what he was trained to to kill and serve.

A song For Boy Soldiers

War "Bob Marley"

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south -
War - war -


This song really relates to the book A Long Way Gone. This makes song reminds me of when Ishmael is at war with the rebels and all he sees or here's is about war. No matter were he goes or looks that's all he knows.

Poem(Apple)

A Single Slice Reveals Them
By:Naomi Shihab-Nye

An Apple on the table
hides its seeds
so neatly under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.

This poem really relates to the book A Long Way Gone because Ishmael doesn't like to show his real feelings, no matter what they are. He is very good at not telling anyone how he is feeling. When you talk to him you have to sit down and get to know him. As soon as you do then you will now him. And then you will see under the seamed skin. Inside he feels like he has hate, anger and aggression. He wants and needs to have someone to sit down and talk to. He doesn't act like he wants someone to talk to because he doesn't like to show his true emotions. This is going to take quite along time for Ishmael because, he does not like to talk. So doing this for him will be quite harder than usual. Ismael is living know at this shelter. The consulers there are trying to bring the "Boy" back out from in him. Every time something goes wrong Ishmael would go up and punch someone in the face, put people in the hospital. But when they would come back, they looked at Ishmael and say, "This is not your fault".

Little Rambo

L acking fear.

I ntense feeling.

T o the end we will be friends.

T ogether we will make it happen.

L ust is here.

E veryone killing their neighbors, friends and family.

R evenge is in the air.

A ttempts to kill.

M achete killing left and right.

B ullets are flying everywhere.

O pportunities for revenge are everywhere.

Keeping Things Wholes, "Mark Strand"

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

too fill the spaces

were my body's been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Explanation:

This poem relates the book A Long Way Gone because Ishmael is missing his family and he is what is missing from his family. Ishmael and his friends are walking around trying to find his family. When the poem talks about when the air is being parted, that makes me think about when he is somewhere no one knows because when he steps forward the air fills back in like he was never there. When the poem also says, "We all have reasons/ for moving" that makes me think that there is always a reason for moving on, trying to win!

God Grew Tired Of Us(Movie Reaction.)

We watched the movie God Grew Tired Of Us. I thought that it was a good movie because it showed us how people lived in Sudan and how they lived. When the African came to the U.S. They had to become a U.S. citizen. So they had to fill out a whole bunch of paper work and they had to go out and get an apartment and at least one or more jobs just to be able to eat, never mind living in their own apartments. They need to make a good living for themselves. One of them wanted to go to college and start his life until one day when he got a letter in the mail, his family was alive and he had to pay to get them back. They had to try to get enough money working two jobs to pay to get his mother and sister and he had to pay a certain amount of money for them each. He found out that more of his family was alive but he could only have two family members come to the U.S.

The book had some similarities to the book, like when Ishmael lost his family and he had no hope left. They both left their homelands to be where there was no civil war going on. They both had to leave their friends and family because they were all separated from them.