Ishmael Beah at Starbucks

Yesterday, Ishmael Beah was speaking at the Starbucks in Davis Square, in Somerville, Massachusetts, to an overflow crowd. It is an amazing experience to see an author in person and to hear them read from his or her book,  and to tell about what the experience was like for them. 

As you probably know, Ishmael also had a live chat here on Gather yesterday, in which he answered questions from Gather members. 

Ishmael was a child soldier in Sierra Leone, from the time he was 13 until UNICEF rescued him when he was 16. UNICEF then placed Ishmael in a rehabilitation center and helped him immigrate to the U.S., where he finished high school. Ishmael graduated from Oberlin College in 2004; he is all of 26, but has already lived a lifetime of experience, much of which was horrendous, having been a child, trained to kill.

Ishmael described what happened when he first began talking about his experiences as a child soldier, when he first moved to New York and went to high school. He began speaking in public about his experiences; sometimes, people did not understand the scope of the problem, or did not understand, that as a child soldier trained to kill - that he was a victim of the war, too, not a perpetrator.

Ishmael lost his family, his town, and his childhood innocence.

He read from Chapter 2 of his book. I purchased his book at Starbucks yesterday and have read significant parts.

In a comment on his live chat, I asked him about the experience of writing about such a horrific experience, and he replied that it took him more than three years to write the book. Sometimes, he needed to take breaks from writing about the sections on the war and wrote about happier times.

The book, "A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" is beautifully written, and you want to read it in one sitting, wanting to absorb everything,  anxious to know more about the boy whose childhood was reft from him.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 2, which Ishmael read yesterday at Starbucks.

"I am pushing a rusty wheelbarrow in a town where the air smells of blood and burnt flesh. The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breaths are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs; brain matter comes out of their noses and ears. The flies are so excited and intoxicated that they fall on the pools of blood and die. The eyes of the nearly dead are redder than the blood that comes out of them, and it seems that their bones will tear through the skin of their taut faces at any minute. I turn my face to the ground to look at my feet. My tattered crepes [sneakers] are soaked with blood, which seems to be running down my army shorts. I feel no physical pain, so I am not sure whether I've been wounded..."

I recommend this book to everyone.

Ishmael reminded listeners yesterday that we need to remember that the incidence of child soldiers is not unique to Sierra Leone, nor to Africa, but is all over the world.  It is estimated that there are more than 50 violent conflicts worldwide, with more than 300,000 child soldiers, as Ishmael was. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations, on several occasions.

If Ishmael is reading at a Starbucks near you, it is best you arrive early, as seating may be limited. He is a most engaging speaker; you will want to hear his story and read what he has written.

"A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" is available at Starbucks, at Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com. It is published by Sarah Crichton Books, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2007.