Journey of The Lost Boys by Joan Hecht - Book Report/Review Example

Journey of the Lost Boys by Joan Hecht The personal and historical challenges and struggles that they face; The lost boys and girls had to undergo severe challenges and barriers during their journey to America from the Dark Continent. As they were escaping from the war field, they had to be very cautious of their lives; especially the threat from the enemy soldiers, worst climate conditions, wild animals, and so on. Their personal and historical challenges were really incomparable that they faced alienation from their parents and homeland at early ages.

Such a critical juncture, separated from their parents and families, led them to be orphans. The lost boys literally lost everything, such as, family support, a common language, cultural links, language, and a sense of community integration. They were haunted with various other factors like poverty, violence, family fragmentation, discrimination, and unemployment. The historical challenges include their escape from death at the hands of GOS forces and from the waters of death and deliverance at the river Gilo.

The strategies that they employ to deal with these challenges and struggles; The lost boys employed various strategies to save themselves from GOS forces, wild animals, natural forces, and from certain other opposing factors. The lost boys when they reached Ethiopia, they would save themselves by evading from the mandatory military trainings, though some of them participated in it with eagerness even at the tender age. As there were no doctors to treat them for serious diseases or bone injuries, they would treat by themselves.

When the GOS soldiers has invaded Wernyol leaving a killing field behind them (Hecht 35), they had to seek hiding places. The degrees to which their strategies are successful or unsuccessful in helping them transcend their challenges and struggles; One cannot say that their strategies were very much successful in helping them to transcend challenges and struggles. The lost boys were, in a way, won in their attempts to save their life from the GOS forces. But they had failed in regulating the number of the deaths due to poverty and violence.

They would very often lead a life like the animals, and were forced to hide for the fear of the GOS soldiers. Their success or lack of success in finding allies in their struggles; and the lessons that they take from their experiences. The reasons for the failure of the lost boys in ensuring the protection were the lack of allies in their struggles. The long journey they started from their home country Sudan to that of America gave them many experiences and taught them various lessons. One of the prominent lessons among them was that they learned the value of families and faced the severe threat of alienation.

They came to know of starvation, violence, loss of identity or identity crisis, unemployment, and many other personal experiences. The story also underlines the courage, faith and the sheer determination of the lost boys to survive even at the face of hard realities of life. Work Cited: Hecht, J. The journey of the lost boys. Illustrated, rev.edn. Allswell Press, 2005. Print.