Beyond Kony: 5 Essential Reads About Child Soldiers in Africa

Invisible Children's "Kony 2012" documentary has been as controversial as it is viral, attracting passionate support and ardent criticism. It's clear, though, that its achieved the fir

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
229 pages. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $12.

Beah takes an insightful look at his childhood, when he was forced to shed his rap-adoring, Running Man-practicing yo

What is the What
by Dave Eggers
560 pages. Vintage. $16.

What is the What is not a wholly nonfictional memoir, but it's based on haunting, devastating reality. Eggers' novel centers on the life of Vale

Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children
by Grace Akallo and Faith McDonnell
240 pages. Chosen Books. $14.99

Akallo's memoir about her time as a member of Kony's infamous Lord's R

They Poured Fire on us From The Sky
by Benjamin Ajak, Benson Deng, Alephonsian Deng, and Judy Bernstein
336 pages. PublicAffairs. $13.95.

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky is another tale about Sudan's Lost B

War Child
by Emmanuel Jal and Megan Lloyd Davies
272 pages. St. Martin's Griffin. $14.99.

When Jal was 7, his father, a high-ranking official in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army, sent him off to Ethiopia