War Brothers Book Report

Personal Responses

In the novel War Brothers by the author Sharon E Mckay, is a book talking about the child soldiers in Gulu and how they’ve being kidnapped to fight for god or at least that’s what they were told. While reading the book you will realize that there are a lot of scenes that you connect to the real life, things that happened to you with your family or friends that will make you think more about them and how to appreciate them for being always with you. In the book there are many different type of characters, evil, lonely, strong, or the brave, all with different stories and experience. Reading the book will make you think more about those kids and want to help them. As we mentioned, there are a lot
of characters in the novel, the character that I chose is Hannah, Hannah is one of the main characters in the novel, she was kidnapped by the LRA to be a cooker. Hannah was so insists of going back to her freedom, she tried to escape many times but she ended up with no ears it was a punishment for her so she won’t escape again, but this is not a barrier that would block her dream of being a nun. When Jacob first met her in chapter 5 he was surprised from her strengths and braveness. She was so brave so she decided to escape again, cutting her ears did not prevents her to escape and find her freedom she screamed at Jacob when he was showing pity about her ears so she said: “what? Do you think i’m suffering because they took off my ears? I’m lucky and strong. As long as i don’t get sick, i will live and i will escape one day“. Part from her was missing, she was lonely, too lonely you can see that by just looking to her eyes, you can see the misery and loneliness. First she lost her parents when she was a kid, right after that she lost her sister who ran away with the rest of the cousins, lastly she lost her friend, Sarah wasn’t just a friend, she was a friend, family, and love Hannah said about Sarah: “Sarah was my family, i never saw her again”. But Hannah is still fighting, she’s fighting for her self to achieve her dream and go to freedom, one day she will make it and escape or maybe she already did. In every novel there are some parts you can connect with your real life, but in our novel there are a lot of them.
Firstly: in chapter 5, when jacob decided to join the LRA to share his food with Norman because he think that Norman is too weak and young to fight and stay a weeks without food, he knew that Norman will die if he didn’t eat. “Unless we have food we will die soon, Norman surely will too,but he is too weak to fight. If i join the battle i can share my food with him”. So Jacob just put his friend over himself, he thought about his friend before thinking about himself. And I connected this part with the time that I forgot my lunch at home and had nothing to eat,but surely my best friend gave me all her lunch, deciding not to eat anything and just give me her whole lunch, so basically my friend and Jacob are both the same, they both put their friends over all, they both thinks about friends first, they both may do something that they never want just for their friends. Secondly: when Jacob met Hannah in chapter 7, after they both escaped and separated, he was just too shocked but so glad to see her fine after all these months he was too excited so he jumped to her and hugged her for too long, he did not even realized himself, he totally forgot about her dream of being a nun and that she might achieved it and they were both laughing too much. “Hannah, i’m so glad to see you again! Oh sorry i didn’t what’s wrong? I mean are you a nun now? Hahahaha no i’m
not.” So the same thing happened to me when i met my friends after 5 years of disconnecting, i was so happy to see her again, i hugged for too long and too hard we were both laughing because of my reaction, and it’s the same thing that happened to Jacob and Hannah. Lastly: in chapter 2, when Jacob’s father was going to England, Jacob was too sad because he was going to miss his dad so much during all these days. But at the same time he was happy because he was going to his new school so he was excited about trying a new experience in his life. “I leave today to England, be a good boy. I will miss you dad”. And this reminds of the time when we were coming to Canada, my dad was not coming with us, i was so sad about that because i was gonna miss my dad so much, but at the same time i was excited about the idea of coming to Canada to try a new experience and meet a new friends and people. And at the end, when you finishes reading this novel, you will think more about those kids who are really suffering in real from the same problem, every day a thousands of kids are kidnapped from their families to fight against the government or maybe for “god”, or at least that's what they were told, many of those children are being killed because of they did not want to kill they are teaching them the (kill or be killed) so some of them are killing to survive and the others are killed because of that. Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Uganda, and even more are stealing the kids to completely changes their minds from the good little kid to an evil killer, they are teaching the children that killing and stealing are right, that god told us to do this. They are growing the hateness in their little white hearts. So reading this book will makes you think a lot more about those kids and how to save them and brings them back to their schools, families, and friends, back to their previous life, when they used to care about schools and homeworks not killing or stealing, so we all hope that the right person will read this book and do something to save these kids. At the end we will thanks the awesome author Sharon E Mackay for writing this such an amazing novel War Brothers because through it now we know more about the reality of the children's soldiers, added to that now we know more about the characters and the parts that you can connect to your world with something that happened to you or to someone you know.