John's Blog

I have to say tat this is a tough book to and a tough book to really know what to make of it. The subtitle is "Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" -- it's about Ishmael's childhood in Sierra Leone, and his extremely quick trip from living with his family to killing people in the name of ... well, in the name of something. Kathy & I saw Ishmael on The Daily Show, and were taken with his poise and maturity -- and his wisdom, of course. This is a guy who's in his twenties now, living in Manhattan, but in the past 20 years has gone from living in a tiny town in Sierra Leone to killing many, many innocent people while addicted to drugs and under the control of a military, to writing a book and trying to help others understand how impossible the situation is. It's not the best-written book that I've ever read, but if even a fraction of it is true -- and I have a sad suspicion that it's all true -- it's mind-boggling that people have to go through this, and that people like Ishmael can survive.