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New children’s book about child soldiers published!

Kind van de Oorlog

Son of a Gun—Child Soldiers in Liberia

A Novel (for children aged 12-16)

· Fiction based on fact aimed at young teens.

· Social studies book for the classroom or private reading.

· Includes Liberia country facts and figures with photos by the author, plus drawings and poems by former child soldiers.

· Nominated for 2007 Children’s Jury prize in The Netherlands

· Lesson plans and study kits for teachers also available.

· Theme days for classes organized around the story.

(Dutch publisher—Columbus at Jongbloed, Herenveen)

O Yeah!

Welcome to this website! Please be sure to check out Anne de Graaf’s Blog, where she fills readers in on her musings and travels.

Books by Anne de Graaf—they are all over the world. And she has traveled all over the world to write these stories—journeys to places of conflict in search of the children’s voices.

Author of adult novels and children’s books—Anne de Graaf

In November 2006 she traveled for the sequel to the book described below—to South Africa and Zimbabwe for a teen novel about aids survival. This will be Book 4 in a series about children in developing countries. Read more about this trip on her Blog, under the category “Aids survival.”

This time last year she returned from Liberia in West Africa to write the second book in the series. Many thanks to Aukelien Wierenga, publisher of the Columbus imprint at Jongbloed for having the vision and courage to tackle a subject like child soldiers that concerns all children and all adults, no matter where. For a taste of the story (in English), be sure to read the following excerpts and click on the link at the bottom of this page to read the initial chapters of the actual story.

And please click on  Old News to see what else has been happening.

 

27 January 2007

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(Excerpt from Anne de Graaf’s Personal Travel Story)

When I went to Liberia to talk with former child soldiers, it was a scary trip. There had just been elections, and many of the ex-soldiers didn’t like the election results. I watched thousands of them march in protest down the streets of Monrovia while I was there. They yelled and shook their fists while UN soldiers stood by in riot gear. Every day people wondered if violence would break out and the country plunged into war yet again. Every day of peace seemed like an unexpected gift. Soon the days of peace added up and became weeks of peace. Now there have been months of peace. This is what negotiators call a fragile peace. It’s held together by the will of the people as they struggle with forgiving their enemies, now that they live beside them again, their children attend the same schools, and they meet each other in the markets.

There’s a “Facts and Figures” section at the back of the book for even more information about the country of Liberia. The drawings there were made by Liberian children. They are extremely precious because so few children have ever had the chance to be creative and draw with crayons or paints. When several schools were asked to submit drawings for this book, most of the children could only copy what their teachers put up on the chalkboard—a chair or a table. It says a great deal about a war-torn society like Liberia that the children there could not draw themselves or things from their world like a house or the sun or flowers.

 

(Excerpts from the book's Note to the Reader)

World Wide Kidz—a new series!

This book is the second in a new series called World Wide Kidz! In this book—and in the other parts of the series—you can read about children who live in faraway countries. But these are children just like you. Children who laugh, talk and play, who study grammar and arithmetic, and who dream about the future.

In this book you will read about what can happen to a child in Liberia. Lucky and Nopi, brother and sister who are eight and ten years old, are kidnapped and forced to fight in the army. They are just barely strong enough to carry a weapon. This happens not just in Africa, but also in other parts of the world.

The author, Anne de Graaf, traveled to Liberia to research this book. She visited the country, talked to many people and saw with her own eyes what the war had destroyed. She spoke with children and young people who had fought in the war, and she interviewed aid workers. After that she wrote this story about Nopi and Lucky. Nopi and Lucky may not be real, but there are many children in Liberia whose story is the same as theirs.

This book was published with the help of three aid organizations, TEAR Fund, ZOA Refugee Care, and Woord en Daad. At the end of this book you can find more information about these aid organizations and about the country Liberia. There are also poems, short stories and drawings by former child soldiers.

World Wide Kidz is not just a series of books. It’s also a project that you can do at school. Come visit the website!

--the publisher 

For those who read Dutch, click on ZOA to find this aid organization’s report on Anne de Graaf’s visit to Liberia—just scroll down the page until you reach “De stemmen van de kinderen.” You can find even more information about child soldiers and the other books in the WWKidz series by clicking here on wwkidz.nl. If you want to read Anne de Graaf’s own personal travel story for wwkidz, then click here.

 

Can you imagine it?

Can you imagine it? Children walking around with weapons? Children who are forced to hurt other children, children who are forced to defend their country? In Liberia many children had to do just that during the civil war.

This story is meant to open a door and let you see a part of the world most people will never see. Come in and take a look around. Smell and feel and hear what children just like you smell and feel and hear. In this place notice the differences between your country and theirs. Running water, a toilet, and going to school might be normal parts of your life—maybe you don’t even notice them—but how do the children in this story talk about these things? When you read this story, try to put yourself into the shoes of the characters. Imagine that this was your sister, your brother, or you. Are there more differences or more similarities? This story takes place in Liberia, but it’s about children just like you. That’s why this series of books is called World Wide Kidz.

A typical Liberian idea is to “make palava,” which means to gather in a circle under some trees and argue and discuss until an agreement is reached. This attitude is one of the contributing factors to the current peace. It’s held together by the hopes of young people I met and talked to, former child soldiers who spent years being forced to live a nightmare while still daring to dream. They dreamed of peace and they dreamed of school. Now, these dreams are coming true.

Parts of this story will be a little hard to read. These parts were hard to write, too! I still hear the actual voices of the young people who told me these things. Everything described in this story really did happen.

War is always terrible, but civil war is the worst kind of war. It’s when neighbors and in-laws and friends become enemies because government leaders are greedy for power and money. So they lie and break their promises. How would you feel if your neighbor suddenly showed up at your door with a gun in his hand and stole everything that belongs to you and your parents? That’s what happens in civil wars.

Some people say children should be protected from the truth when it is painful. But civil wars and other terrible things do happen in the world. There are dark places all around us, not just in war-torn countries. Other dark places are when bad things happen like death and divorce and pain. But it is in these dark places that we see how bright the gift of hope shines. Children are the world’s future. If your heart is touched by the hearts of the children in this story, hopefully you will help bring a wiser future to the world. Hope is what I found in Liberia. Hope against all odds, as people--and especially children--dared to let go of the past and face a future with nothing but their dreams. What are your dreams?

--Anne de Graaf

 

To read the initial chapters of THE ACTUAL STORY—click here