Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudanby Mary Williams
Publishers Weekly
:
Williams, who founded the Lost Boys Foundation, debuts with a picture book that depicts the struggles of thousands of orphaned Sudanese boys, torn from their families in the mid-1980s. Her story centers on narrator Garang, a boy who herds cattle with his parents. One day he returns to find the village had been attacked and was now empty, though he soon encounters other wandering boys. "At first there was just me-one. Soon one became many. Too many to count." The boys nominate him to lead their group of 35. At times, the narrative feels dense and clunkily expository ("I joined the group of leaders, and we decided we would walk to a country called Ethiopia"). But the events will keep readers turning the pages, as the youngsters make their dangerous journey by night, sleeping in the forest by day. Garang paints a bleak portrait of the experience ("Sometimes we had to drink our urine to get moisture in our bodies"), but the group finally reaches an Ethiopian refugee camp-until war again threatens and they must flee to Kenya. Garang never loses faith or hope-something that Williams, in her introduction, says she witnessed firsthand when she met several of the Lost Boys. Christie's (The Palm of My Heart) acrylics, in bold strokes and brilliant colors, with their childlike renderings of figures and scenes, correlate nicely to the young narrator's unflagging determination, and help to balance the darkness of the events. Ages 7-up. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
| distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.: |
School Library Journal
:
Gr 1-5–During the mid-1980s, Sudan was embroiled in civil war in which over two million lives were lost. Williams bases this fictional picture book on the harrowing, real-life experiences of a band of approximately 30,000 southern Sudanese boys, between the ages of 8 and 15, who walked nearly 1000 miles searching for a safe refuge. Eight-year-old Garang Deng, one of the leaders, tells his story. Traveling by night, foraging for food, plagued by violence, hunger, illness, and death, the journey is a perilous one. They finally make it to a refugee camp in Ethiopia where they meet an American named Tom who helps them. But fighting comes to Ethiopia, and once again the boys must flee, this time to Kenya. Tom is there to help. He takes down Garang's story and tells him he will take the story to the U.S. to try to find some help for them. With Tom's departure, life in the camps is very difficult, yet most boys manage to survive. When the man finally returns, Garang, now 21, asks, â??Where have you been, Tom? Did you forget about us?â?? He explains that he has been spreading the news about the boys' plight, and now the U.S. is offering them a home. Christie's distinctive acrylic illustrations, done in broad strokes of predominantly green, yellow, and burnt orange, are arresting in their combination of realism and the abstract, and reflect the harshness yet hopeful nature of the landscape and the situation. An afterword tells what happened once 3800 of the boys resettled in America. This important profile in courage is one that belongs in most collections.– Mary N. Oluonye, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
| distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.: |
|
