Comparing A Long Walk To Water And The Lost Boys Of Sudan

Imagine if you had to walk for what seems to be an endless amount of time. Starved and thirsty, you see people dying brutal deaths from starvation, thirst, bandits, and animal attacks. Well, this was the fate of the refugees, also known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, who fled from Sudan to escape the Second Sudanese Civil War. Luckily, there are a few pieces of text that documented the events of the war, such as the novel, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park, and the articles “The Lost Boys of the Sudan” by UNICEF and “The ‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan” by Isabel Matheson. Some events have been followed by the novel, such as the boys’ movement to America. However, many have been altered since when the Lost Boys fled from Sudan. Linda Sue Park includes some events or modifies them to enhance her

For example, both the article and novel discuss the Lost Boys’ relocation from Sudan to the United States. Salva stated in the novel that, “The rumor was that about 3,000 boys and young men from the refugee camps would be chosen to go live in America” (Park, 87). This proves that in the novel the aid organizations relocated the Lost Boys to the United States. In the article, it stated, “While many of the boys- who became known as ‘Lost Boys’- were resettled in the United States” (Matheson, 10). This shows that the article also describes the emigration of the boys to the United States. In addition, it says that they were called the Lost Boys in the article, which can also be seen in the novel. Therefore, Linda Sue Park used true events in her novel. While the novel has many fact-based events, some events are slightly altered in the article “The Lost Boys of Sudan”. For instance, when the boys were walking from Sudan, the novel made the movement seem less organized than it was. In Chapter 4 of A Long Walk to Water, it said, “Men and women, boys and girls, old and young, walking,