Summary Ishmael and his friends approach the village where they’ve been told some of their families are living. They meet Gasemu, a banana farmer whom Ishmael knows, and agree to help him carry bananas into the village. As they approach, they hear gunshots, dogs barking, and people screaming. The village […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 11Summary and Analysis Chapter 10
Summary Ishmael’s journey to survive continues in a state of misery. He worries that each time he faces death, a part of him dies a little. He treasures the few moments of joy that bring relief from his constant sorrow. His thoughts return constantly to his family and his longing […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 10Summary and Analysis Chapter 9
Summary Ishmael’s group reaches the ocean and finds a village nearby where they expect to be welcomed because they assume war hasn’t reached the coast. When they enter the village, they find it eerily abandoned, as if the rebels had already attacked. Instead, the boys are attacked, bound, and dragged […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 9Summary and Analysis Chapter 8
Summary Ishmael keeps walking to survive. He passes through the remains of villages filled with dead bodies and rivers running red with blood. He sees the terror on the victims’ faces and it makes him walk faster. He finds himself in a dense patch of forest with large, high trees […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 8Summary and Analysis Chapter 7
Summary Kamator, the village Ishmael, Junior, and their friends are hiding in, is attacked late one night without warning. Most of the villagers are at evening prayer when the rebels invade. They capture the imam, tie his body to a post in the town center, and light him on fire. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 7Summary and Analysis Chapter 6
Summary Because Ishmael and his friends travel as a band of young boys, they are often feared by local villagers, so the boys stick to the bushes and try to avoid the towns. Once, they are captured by a group of men who are volunteer guards for their village and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 6Summary and Analysis Chapter 5
Summary Their hunger drives Ishmael’s group to chase down a child they find eating ears of corn. It wasn’t an orchestrated attack but rather an instinctual assault. Later, the boy’s mother brings Ishmael and his friends more corn, but Ishmael writes that there was no room for remorse in such […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 5Summary and Analysis Chapter 4
Summary Ishmael, his brother, and their friends walk for days in hunger and silence. They pass through abandoned villages and see houses ransacked and dead bodies everywhere. Their hunger becomes all-consuming, and they are forced to return to Khalilou’s house for money and provisions. They find the house destroyed, but […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 4Summary and Analysis Chapter 3
Summary Ishmael, Junior, and Talloi remain in Mattru Jong with their friends, Kaloko, Gibrilla, and Khalilou. They still haven’t heard from their families and do not know if anyone survived the rebels’ attack on their village. A messenger arrives from the town of Sumbuya, the site of the most recent […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 3Summary and Analysis Chapter 2
Summary This chapter begins in Ishmael’s nightmare. He dreams of carrying bodies in a wheelbarrow through his village to the cemetery. He describes a scene of horror: mangled bodies, streams of blood, leaking brains and intestines. His last image is of lifting the cloth off the head of a dead […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 2