Genocide is a difficult topic for anyone to deal with, let alone a teenage student just trying to fulfill his volunteer commitment for a high-school civics course. On his way to volunteer at a soup kitchen, Ian gets more than he bargained for when he meets a homeless man who helps him out of a bind. As he learns more about the man they call "Sarge", Ian comes face to face with the atrocities of war in Rwanda and their affect on the peacekeepers who were trying to save lives. What Ian does to help this haunted homeless man rebuild his shattered life has a profound effect on both of them.
Eric Walter's glimpse into this disturbing historical event left me wanting to learn more about the Rwandan genocide. One source of first-hand information will definitely be the critically acclaimed "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda" by Roméo Dallaire, the commander of two United Nations missions in Rwanda during the events of 1994. As I learned from the book "Shattered", eight hundred thousand people lost their lives in Rwanda during this time, a fact all but forgotten as our lives progress in the 21st century. Eric Walters has brought this back to light and reminds us all to learn from our past in order to make the future brighter.
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