Review by Booklist Review
In a harrowing account of children at war, three young refugees in California--Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak, two brothers and a cousin--remember how they were driven from their homes in southern Sudan in the ethnic and religious conflicts that have left two million dead. They tell their stories quietly with the help of their mentor, coauthor Judy Bernstein, in clear, interwoven narratives that put a personal face on the statistics. Barely six years old when they were torn from their families in the 1980s, the three boys witnessed unspeakable atrocities and trekked nearly 1,000 miles, until finally they found refuge in a camp in Kenya. (A map of their journey would help). Always, the children have the same dreams: to find those they love and to go to school. Now the U.S. has taken them in, along with about 3,000 other lost boys of Sudan, living in 30 cities across the country. With their anguish, for these refugees, there is also the miracle of their reunion and finding home. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Raised by Sudan's Dinka tribe, the Deng brothers and their cousin Benjamin were all under the age of seven when they left their homes after terrifying attacks on their villages during the Sudanese civil war. In 2001, the three were relocated to the U.S. from Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp as part of an international refugee relief program. Arriving in this country, they immediately began to fill composition books with the memoirs of chaos and culture shock collected here. Well written, often poetic essays by Benson, Alepho and Benjamin, who are now San Diego residents in their mid-20s, are arranged in alternating chapters and recall their childhood experiences, their treacherous trek and their education in the camp ("People were learning under trees"). Other pieces remember the rampant disease and famine among refugees, and the tremendous hardship of day-to-day living ("Refugee life was like being devoured by wild animals"). When the boys arrived in America, Benson, upon seeing a Wal-Mart for the first time, remarked, "This is like a king's palace." Although some readers may wish for more commentary on what life in America is like for these transplants, this collection is moving in its depictions of unbelievable courage. Agent, Joni Evans at William Morris. (June 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Sudan has been embroiled in civil war for more than 35 years and has recently been in the news because of the crisis in Darfur. Since 1983, over two million people in Sudan have perished, and more than four million have been displaced. Three of these displaced people came to California in 2001 through the International Rescue Committee, having miraculously survived a journey of thousands of miles. At the encouragement of their mentor, Judy Bernstein, they have written their memories for publication to aid in their education expenses. Bravely and eloquently, they each describe life before their Dinka villages were attacked by government-armed Murahiliin and subsequently surviving starvation, cruelty, and family separation. Despite having disparate cultural and societal norms from the Western world, these men reveal the constancy of human nature: missing a mother, happiness at finding a brother, the thirst for education, and a will to survive. What is most amazing is that these men, now in their twenties, were only five to seven years old when their harrowing experiences began. The arrangement of the chapters helps the reader understand the chronology of events and allows for a compelling narrative reminiscent of Holocaust survivor stories. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Maria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll., Painesville, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Three "lost boys" of Sudan remember lives lived far away from the torrents of history. The boys, now young men in their mid-20s, were members of the Dinka tribe, pastoralists who live in the south of the Sudan. The Dinka and their Nuer cousins, whom Benson Deng characterizes as "the tallest and blackest people in Africa," excited much jealousy among the Arab rulers of the Sudan--rulers who, by Deng's account, wanted the fertile lands between the Blue Nile and White Nile for themselves and, in the bargain, demanded that the Dinka convert to Islam. It was not an attractive offer; "as cattle keepers," Benson adds, "we didn't have time to be meditating with the Qu'ran five times a day." Soon government planes came to bomb Dinka villages whose inhabitants tried to fight back with spears; when better-armed rebel soldiers arrived, they guided the survivors to refugee camps in Ethiopia, where, Benson recounts, food and medicine were in constant shortage and "many of the boys got sick and died from eating grass soups, but it was often all we had." Over the next decade, the boys moved among refugee and rebel camps in Kenya and along the Sudanese border, a life that, Alephonsion writes, "was like being devoured by wild animals." That was little better than being one of the rebel soldiers, Benson adds: Once they strapped on AK-47s, they were controlled as tightly as dogs and sent off to die. Finally, their plight to come to the attention of international relief organizations, and thereafter private American efforts, brought the three boys to the U.S., "the land of many gorgeous goods" and of promises that, one hopes, are being kept. Well-meaning, and valuable as a document of the refugee experience. The boys' narrative, however, would have been better served by a commentary explaining the ongoing Sudanese crisis and otherwise adding more depth to this child's-eye view of events. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
