This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. Ishmael Beah, now 25 years old, tells how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

In this tragic and utterly authentic 1989 Newbery Honor Book about two friends in contemporary Harlem, Myers has captured the street milieu well, and the characters and the events ring all too true. . . . A dishearteningly effective tale of poverty and inverted values. --Booklist.

	To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.

	Julia DiVino tries hard not to get mixed-up with the gangs at South Bay High School, but when Eric Valienté enters into her life, everything changes.