Product Description

Ida, a member of Sri Lankas Female Tamil Tigers, fought with one of the longest-surviving and successful guerilla movements in the world. She is sixteen. Francois, a fourteen-year-old Rwandan child of mixed ethnicity, was forced by Hutu militiamen to hack to death his sisters Tutsi children. More than 250,000 children have fought in three dozen conflicts around the world, but growing exploitation of children in war is staggering and little known. From the little bees of Colombia to the baby brigades of Sri Lanka, the subject of child soldiers is changing the face of terrorism. For the last seven years, Jimmie Briggs has been talking to, writing about, and researching the plight of these young combatants. The horrific stories of these children, dramatically told in their own voices, reveal the devastating consequences of this global tragedy. Cogent, passionate, impeccably researched, and compellingly told, Innocents Lost is the fullest, most personal and powerful examination yet of the lives of child soldiers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #435356 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 216 pages

About the Author
Jimmie Briggs, a freelance journalist, was awarded the John Bartlow Martin Award from Northwestern University for a story about the Gulf War's impact on children, which became a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He has written for The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Emerge, Vibe, LIFE, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

A moving personal account that details the similarities of child soldiers globally
Briggs is a journalist who travels to some of the places in the world where child soldiers are known to be fighting. The five chapters of the book discuss the personal accounts of a range of people from Rwanda, Columbia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Afghanistan; some are child soldiers, others have completed rehabilitation programs, and then the families of those whose children who have been killed. Each is well selected and constructed to give a holitstic picture of all caught up in the conflicts with child soldiers and the similarities of them in different locations.

Briggs supplies a deeply personal account of his journey through writing the book and blends his own personal life and emotions into the narrative style without ever losing track of the overall purpose of the book. As such the book is difficult to put down as you learn of the attrocities that occur through the world, the injustices of various situations; linked together not only by common threads in the conflicts but by an absorbing evolution of one man's emotional wellbeing in dealing with these first hand.

Briggs is a journalist rather than a theorist or academic, if you are looking for detailed reasons why children are in these positions then this is perhaps not the book that answers those questions overtly. But if you are aware of the reasons already this book is superb in confirming them as the interviews with various children, families and town elders confirms all of the ideas.

This is a certainly a text I would recommend to anyone, its gripping, informative and personal. If your a student or academic I'd advice reading a more theoretical book first in order to spot the reasons why children become arbsorbed into these conflicts but after reading that make this a priority. To anyone else interested in the subject make this a certain choice of yours.

Never having read any of Briggs' writing before I will certainly look to in the future, I have a great respect for this courageous man and would love to meet him and tell him so!!! Highly, highly Recommended.

Different stories
Gives a good overview of differences in civil wars where child soldiers are used. Both personal stories and causes. Also, the reporter goes to various community centers and police departments to sort out what is happening to resolve the problems. If you want to read more specifically about the aftermath and the effect on children and future generations of wars in Sri Lanka, Colombia, Rwanda, Uganda and Afghanistan, this is a good book. Well-written, but could go a little deeper sometimes to elaborate short-mentioned events.