Book Review of 'A Long Walk to Water' by Linda Sue Park
Premise: A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan 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. Poignant and Compelling This inspiring story will be hard to put down. A Long Walk to Water comprises two separate narratives from two people at two different periods of time. One is from a boy named Salva during the second Sudanese Civil War in 1985, and another from a girl named Nya which takes place in Sudan as well, but begins in ...