A Long Walk To Water: Based On A True Story (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park is a non-fiction book about a young girl named Nya who walks eight hours every day to get water for her family in 2008, and about a boy named Salva who walks away from his family and the only home he has ever known to stay safe from the war in 1985. In Africa, a war has just broken out in Salva’s home town in southern Sudan. Salva is forced to run across Africa, looking for his family and a safe place to live. Salva does find a friend and someone from his family, but he loses them both shortly after. Nya has to walk a two hour walk two times to get water for her family. She, sometimes, has to dig in mud to find water to bring back, but when Nya’s little sister becomes very ill, Nya feels guilty because her sister got sick from the water Nya collected. I liked this book because it very moving and it gave me a very good message, to never give up, lose hope, and stay determined because then you will find what you're looking for. One reason why I absolutely loved this book is the way Linda Sue Park wrote it. The way two different stories combined at the end with one message. This book was very interesting because it started out as two completely different stories and people but as the book progressed, I saw that the two 11 year olds have a lot in common and their stories intersect at the end. I disliked the way Linda Park fit 20 years of Salva’s life into 128 pages but stayed in the same year for Nya’s story. I felt confused when the author went from 1985 to 2007 in such a short book. I felt the author did not use many details in the book to describe Salva’s situation so the reader could understand his story. I would definitely recommend this book to someone. I would recommend because it is such a terrific book that not a lot of people know about. This book tells a story in a way that is confusing, but still very informative about Salva and Nya’s childhood and the conditions they had to live through. I would recommend this book to a reader that enjoys learning about other people’s lives. Also, to someone that likes to read in general, this is a great book that, I think, more than people that like biographies should read and enjoy like I did. I would not recommend this book to people who do not like biographies. This is a fine story. The story is based on these two characters named Salva and Nya, and they are also both during different time periods. Salva's story is during 1990's and Nya's during 2008. Salva was just a little boy when there was a war going on and had to get separated with his family. He travels with others to go to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Along the way he has stifles trying to survive. Nya on the other hand has to wake up everyday to fetch some water that isn't even clean for her family. Nya also has struggles trying to stay alive. Throughout the story I believe they both get a happy ending. The signpost was an alright activity I like the fact that we can have a discussion over the story. The signpost did help a little bit to understand the story more clearly. I would recommend doing this again but the one thing I would want to change that we can choose like 7 different books that the class agrees on reading, and then we can choose out of those seven different choices.
What do You think about A Long Walk To Water: Based On A True Story (2010)?
The ending was mind-blowing!!!! I loved this book.
—eliana
