A Long Walk to Water: Question #9

If your book is set in a time period in history, it probably tells you a lot about that period.  What might you do if you lived in that time period and faced a similar dilemma as the protagonist does?

So I was thinking about this question and realized that you often want to say 'I would have done exactly what the protagonist did and saved the day!' But would you really? I think that sitting here on my nice comfortable couch thinking about it, however much I want to say I would 'save the day' I think I wouldn't.  But if I was actually in that situation I would probably pull through because, I mean, what other choice would I have.

In the book one character has this system that when he is walking across the desert he is thinking, just until that tree, or just until the end of this day, and this helps him get through all his troubles.  I think that this was very effective for him and it served him well.

The other character in my book has a slightly less hard life but it is still tough.  This is just her norm so she doesn't really know anything else and therefore she doesn't really think about how hard it is.  I don't exactly know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but in the end things get better for her and that's good.

A Long Walk to Water: A look at Nya

So, while reading this book I was wondering why is Nya's story in the book at all.  I mean it isn't as gripping as Salva's story is and is a lot shorter and simpler.  But the author probably had a reason for putting it in because otherwise it wouldn't be there.  So here are two reasons why I think Nya's story is added to the book.

Nya's story might have been added for suspense.  It breaks up Salva's story so that you have time to wonder and worry about what is going to happen to Salva.  I think that this is a good thing.  It keeps the story interesting and fun to read.  Where I normally don't like suspense (I read the last 200 pages of the 7th Harry Potter book before reading the rest of the them) here it adds a nice touch.

Nya's story also might have been added to flesh out Salva's story.  Salva's story can't exactly describe the hardship of day to day life, stay interesting, and give you the whole picture because it takes place over such a long period of time.  In a way, Nya's story helps you imagine what Slava's day to day life is like.  This is important because it helps you look even deeper into Salva's life and story.  Overall I think that Nya's story is there for a reason, whatever that reason may be, and it added something to the book.

A Long Walk to Water: A look at Salva

So in A Long Walk to Water there are two main characters, boy and a girl.  Just to recap from my last post, the boy's (Salva) story takes place from 1985 to 2009 and the girl's (Nya) story takes place from 2008 to 2009.  The narrator switches off between telling the two stories.

While I was reading the book I noticed that the author, Linda Sue Park, describes how Salva leads a group in almost the exact same way twice, once in 1991-1992 during the telling of Salva's story, and once in 2009 during the telling of Nya's story.

*Slight Spoiler Alert*

Here is the quote from Salva's story. On page 81 it says "Salva would talk to them [the boys he was directing], encourage them, coax and persuade them.  Once in a while he a to speak sternly, or even shout. But he tried not to do this so often." Then on pages 76-76 from Nya' s story it says "The boss would encourage the workers and laugh and joke with them.  If that didn't work, he would talk to them earnestly and try to persuade them.  And if that didn't work, he would get angry. He didn't get angry very often." We later learn that the boss is Salva.

Okay, so my question was there any point in the fact that there are many similarities in the way the author describes Salva.  I think that there is a point. I think that it shows how mature Salva's experiences have made him, and how mature he already was in the first case.  In the first case he has been without his family or anyone to help him for six years. That is a very long time to be away from your family, especially if you don't know if you will ever see them again. I don't think it is ever something someone would want.

Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover (or not)

So a long, long, long, time ago I started reading this book called a A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.  About a month ago I finished it. So I meant to post something on it a long time ago but... well whatever. Okay, so before I read the book I wrote down some things about what I thought the book was going to be about thinking that it might make a good post to compare what I thought it was going to be like and what it actually was like.  I basically judged the book by its cover, and inside cover :). So here we are.

So on the inside cover it said that the book was about two children growing up in the war torn country of Sudan. I thought that the book would be told as one story even though it was about two different children. I thought it would be a story about survival and perseverance.

As it turned out the two stories took place at completely different times, one in 1985-2009 and one from 2008-2009.  The stories were told by a narrator (not someone in the story) and they switched off telling one person's story and then another.  It was about perseverance but, the two characters persevered in different ways.  I found this really interesting.

Normally when a book just randomly switches off between two stories or perspectives it annoys me and makes it hard to follow the story.  But in this case it actually made the book really enjoyable to read.  It added a little suspense which, even though I don't normally like suspense, helped the book stay interesting.