A Powerful Adventure of Survival, Perseverance, and Hope in Sudan
Linda Sue Park · 2010 · Children’s novel
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A Long Walk to Water tells two parallel stories set in Sudan. In 1985, eleven-year-old Salva is at school when fighting from the civil war reaches his village. Separated from his family, he joins a stream of refugees walking across the country and beyond, facing hunger, thirst, wild animals and loss, then years in refugee camps. His story is based on the real life of Salva Dut, one of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan.
In 2008, a girl named Nya spends most of each day walking to a distant pond to fetch water for her family, which keeps her from going to school. Linda Sue Park tells both stories in short, alternating chapters for young readers, and they eventually connect.
Key insights
- Break an overwhelming journey into small goals. Salva keeps going by focusing on reaching the next landmark rather than thinking about the whole distance.
- Clean water shapes everything else. Access to it affects health, time and whether children, especially girls, can go to school.
- Ethnic rivalries, such as that between the Dinka and Nuer peoples, run through the story, which invites readers to look past old divisions.
- Hope needs something to hold on to. The possibility of finding family and a better future keeps Salva moving through years of hardship.
- Small kindnesses matter in desperate times. Strangers and fellow travellers who share food, protection or encouragement help Salva survive.
Read it if you want a short, moving story based on real events that works well for sharing with older children.