I liked this book, but I have some mixed feelings. Overall, I found it way more engaging than I expected, and it is an incredibly important story to tell. The end felt a little rushed to me, which undercut the excellence of what had come before. I'm also not sure who will pick this up. I think you would have to do some hard selling to get this into a kid's hand. Might be worth it, though. ( )

An important and powerful book -- written with Michel Chikwanine and telling his story, of being abducted as a child and forced to become a soldier. While the subject is horrific, this book handles it with skill and grace, and a message that we all must join together to make this stop. ( )

Pretty impressed with how well they presented this subject to a middle grade audience. ( )

This Middle Grade graphic novel style memoir relates the horrific experiences of co-author Michel Chikwanine, who was kidnapped at age five in 1993 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and forced to become a child soldier. His happy childhood was abruptly over. After he arrived at the rebel camp, soldiers cut his wrist and poured a mix of gunpowder and cocaine into the wound. They then forced him to kill his best friend.

It only got worse. As he reports: “Each day was hard and terrible, filled with fear, torture and death.” He was always scared.

He managed to escape and return to his family, “but nothing could erase what had happened.” He remembers, “I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t want to play with other children, I didn’t want to play at all.”

His father became an activist, and then he too was kidnapped and tortured, until a priest helped him escape to Uganda. The family followed him and they lived in a refugee camp, hoping to immigrate to North America.

After six years, at age 16, Michel and his mom and one sister were allowed to move to Canada. His older sisters were not allowed out and his father had been poisoned.

He writes that he has now lived in North America for ten years. He learned that young people had no idea what was happening to kids in other countries just like them, and so he wanted to share his story, “as painful as it is for me to tell and as sad as it is for you to hear.”

He hopes to make positive changes in the world.

An afterword tells more about Michel’s life following immigration and how he worked hard to learn a new language in a new country and support the rest of his family. Co-author Humphreys states: “Michel has worked long and hard to heal from his experience as a child soldier.”

The book concludes with further explanation about child soldiers, how many there are, where they are used (Africa is home to half of the world’s child soldiers), and what can be done to help. A list of websites for further research is also included.

Illustrator Claudia Dávila suggests, rather than explicitly shows, the cruelty and violence of the story, but what is happening is clear. Suggested age range is 10–14.

Evaluation:. This is an appalling story but one important for people to be aware of, and certainly will contribute to an appreciation of a peaceful existence under a stable government. It offers an excellent opportunity for teaching about other countries and about political realities around the world. ( )