A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beah fled attacking rebels in Sierra Leone and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy found he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of staff at his rehabilitation centre, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and finally, to heal. This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.