Ishmael

I choose the song Take a minute by K’naan. I choose this song because it reminds me of the book A Long Way Gone and it reminds me of when Ishmael’s lost his mother and saw people being killed.

“Mother knows, my mother she suffered blows

I don't know how we survived such violent episodes”

This lyric I think is very strong because he made it through being shot at, stuff being set on fire around him, running for hours and hours. Starving, living in jungles, and he was very attached to his mom and was very worried about her, maybe his mom didn’t make it through but he did.

Child soldiers

In many countries children are used as soldiers. After we read the book A Long Way Gone I got to know a lot more about child soldiers and why countries have child soldiers. After learning about this problem I really do not like the idea of children being used as soldiers. Many of the children are being forced into becoming soldiers and some are being drugged, so they think that they want to be there, and they want to kill people. Also many of them have lost their parents, or brothers or sisters. So they are emotionally venerable. Sometimes thinking other soldiers are their family, which keeps them comfortable, and the drugs keep them going.

I am strongly against this, because they are children. Most children go out and play with their friends, go to school, spend time with family. Not go to war, be abducted, or drugged so they can participate in killing. Children should have some where safe to go, people that make them feel safe, and learn about safety. They should not see people being slaughtered, and they should not be a part of slaughtering.

Some children com out of the war and go into rehab. Some of them have been on drugs for month, years. So it’s obviously going to be hard for them to come clean. But even after becoming clean they still have the memories. Maybe some fun but they have memories of seeing people being killed, tortured, and killing people them self.

No child should go through that, no child should be forced or drugged to kill. Maybe they can fit in little places, maybe theres a lot of them. But they should be in school learning and bettering them self, not being drugged or forced into be a low life killer.

Book Review: The Unidentified

I read The Unidentified by Rae Mariz . This book is about teenagers that go to a school and it's pretty much a game, they have arcade time, they have missions, it's very different then a normal school, and it's in an old mall. For most teens it would be the best school to go to, it's a very fun school. One of the major conflicts is a group of people dropped a dummy from the 4th floor and its balloon head exploded, but no one knew who did it. It is a big mystery. But there are fliers all around the school that say, "Choose your suicide." Kid and her friends are trying to figure out who did it. Its very intense and interesting.

I didn't really like this book, I couldn't get into it. It starts off very slow. But I think it would be a good book for male or female teenagers, because it's like the dream school not having class and being able to do what you want. That's what most teens want. So this book would definitely interest a lot of people. The book is about 200 pages long, so it's not a long book. But a lot goes on in those 200 pages.