Synopsis
A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way. Includes an afterword by author Linda Sue Park and the real-life Salva Dut, on whom the novel is based, and who went on to found non-profit Water for South Sudan.- ★★★★★
- ★★★☆☆
- ★★★★★
- ★★★★☆
Mindful Muslim Review
“Quitting leads to much less happiness in life than perseverance and hope.” In the endless deluge of pop-culture icons and social media influencers, biographies of real-life heroes direct our children’s hearts and minds towards admirable character traits and ideas worth learning. In this biography, two stories move parallel to one another, 23 years apart, and converge into one giving readers insight into the effects of a civil war from a child’s perspective—displacement, loss of family, instability, and lack of food and water. Perseverance is a central theme—moving forward one step at a time, one day at a time, one problem at a time. Salva Dut lived through the civil war in Sudan and this true story captures his escape and his survival as he moved by foot through Sudan to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and then to camps in Kenya. He was finally given an opportunity to leave for New York and stay with a host family. His story, however, did not end there. Eventually, after taking multiple trips back home to Sudan and being reunited with his family, he realized he had to give back to his country and his people. Parents should note that the historical reasons for the civil war in Sudan is complicated (power, land, and resource control). The one-paragraph background given in the book (p. 6) is overly simplified as a religious conflict that doesn’t accurately reflect the historical and cultural reality of the region.
