One Community, One Book: 2008 Selection
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
A Long Way Gone
by Ishmael Beah
About The Book
A Long Way Gone is a gripping story of a child’s journey through hell and back.
There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story. At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, he struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion. This is, at last, a story of redemption and hope. (Text taken from official website.)
About The Author
Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004 he graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in political science. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO panels on children affected by the war. His work has appeared in VespertinePress and LIT magazine. He lives in New York City. (Text taken from official website.)
OCOB Expands in 2008
This year marks a significant change for One Community, One Book. With support from the UI Office of the Provost, the UICHR will provide copies of a special printing of "A Long Way Gone," including a welcome letter from UI President Sally Mason, to all incoming undergraduates at the UI, approximately 4,300 students. Additionally, the UI Department of Rhetoric in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will integrate this year's selection into the courses taught to satisfy the general education requirement in rhetoric. Other events, both curricular and extra-curricular, will help integrate the program into the university's fall semester and expand the common book program to all UI students, including an on-campus lecture by the author. Planning is ongoing for activities to engage both students and community members ... more
For Everyone
Discussion groups and other events will take place September - November, 2008. If you would like to participate, or if you have questions about One Community, One Book, please contact Joan Nashelsky or Pat Schnack.
For Students
We're sure that you have questions as we embark on the expansion to campus of this community book project. To help answer them, we've put together an FAQ that tackles some of the issues you may be wondering about, such as "When will I get the book?" and "How will the book be incorporated into my classes?"