Release date: November 15 2010
Pages: 128
Source: NetGalley
1985: Salva is an 11 year old boy, living in a little village in Sudan, His life changes forever when rebel soldiers attack the village. After that, his life is in danger and he is on the run for his life. He loses his family out of sight, and arrives in a crowded refugee camp in Ethopia and later Kenya. Salva describes his life during that time vividly:The rain, the mad current, the bullets, the crocodiles, the welter of arms and legs, the screams, the blood. In the Kenyan refugee camp, he is one of 3,000 young men chosen to go to America. After he is adopted by a family in Rochester, New York, he is reunited with the Sudanese family that he left behind.
The other story in the book is the one about Nya, a girl also living in a Sudanese village, but in 2008. She has to make two walks of two hours everyday to fetch water from pond a every day, until one day a man called Salva comes to her village to install a new water pond which is very close to her house..
I loved this short book, based on the true story of Salva Dut. The style of writing just blew me away. It was written very simple, but it just gripped me. And I loved how the story of Salva and Nya where woven together in the end and that Nya didn't have two make the two long walks of two hours to fetch water and that Salva was reunited with his family. There wasn't anything I disliked about the book, go and read it! Author Linda Sue Park interviewed her friend Salva Dut about his life in Sudan for this book, which you can see more about in this book trailer;
