They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

I was born in 1988. I grew up a normal southern life and though it had some difficulties, I am still amazed that at the same time, these 3 boys were living in a fearful, cruel, and painful hell every day, always on the brink of being killed by warriors or starvation.

I can't express the hurt I feel, imagining my son and daughter being born into the atrocities that took place in Sudan. The most baffling is the cruelty of the average people trying to survive. How they treated each other, especially orphaned children is mind boggling.

I know these things have happened and are happening in the world, but it always hits hard learning about actual experiences. Making it more real than just a trivia fact.

Books like these should be required show more reading. show less

In 1987, Alephonsion and Benson Deng, along with their cousin Benjamin -- not one of them older than seven -- fled with thousands of other children during attacks on their rural villages in southern Sudan, walking hundreds of miles over many months to escape the conflict, which followed close in their footsteps. With only a handful of grown adults to guide and encourage them, the boys were compelled to forage for their own food and build their own shelters, all the while at the mercy of the hot, arid environment and hazards of local wildlife. Shunted from refugee camp to refugee camp, they ultimately saw many of their brethren succumb to starvation, disease or violence, before finally -- after fourteen years in refugee camps -- Alepho, show more Benson and Benjamin were approved to enter the U.S. in hopes of rebuilding their lives and healing themselves.

The plight of refugees, fragile lives stuck in impossible, unrelenting limbo, are described in frank and painful detail. There could not be a more timely or heartbreaking read for 2017. show less

This made me cry. Twice. Powerful. It is the true account, told in their own words, of three orphaned brothers, "Lost Boys" from the Sudanese civil war (over 2 million dead) who were eventually resettled in America. After they became orphaned at around ages of 5 during at attack on their jungle village, for 14 years they wondered around southern Sudan, miraculously eescaping one close death after the next from thirst, starvation, wild animals, exhaustion, disease, injury and of course constant civil war - all the while searching, finding, loosing each other, finally to be resettled in America. Through it all they retained respect and dignity. This is a major wide-eye opener of how people are living, right now today. Incredible and heart show more wrenching. show less

Heartbreaking memoir of two young brothers and their cousin who walk for 5 years to escape civil war in their homeland of Sudan. They land first in Ethiopia and later in a Kenyan refugee camp. Eventually they find their way to San Diego to begin a new, and very different, life. A great read. Compelling.

Ages: high school & up; some sections could easily be used in upper middle school.

Curriculum connections: Alephonsian Deng's essay in Newsweek; Home of the Brave; 14 Cows for America;

Republic of South Sudan.

The interwoven tales of three of Sudan's Lost Boys provide a devastatingly personal look at the Second Sudanese Civil War. One of the audiobook readers was so garbled that I turned to the print edition instead.

True stories of 3 Sudanese youths (two brothers and a cousin) who traveled hundreds of miles after guerrilla forces destroyed their native village. They tell in numbing detail of starvation, thirst, torture, and persecution. The first-person, non-native English voices bring a freshness and honesty, especially Benson's narratives.

Common reading on our campus this year. A tragic tale. Similar to What is the What by Dave Eggers, which I enjoyed but similarly horrified me. Young boys escape violence in their South Sudanese village by fleeing to Kenya and other refugee camps, mostly unaccompanied and mostly on foot.