Pegi Deitz Shea,
Abe in Arms
Reach & Teach (PM Press), 2010.

Ages 12+

Seventeen-year-old Abe seems to have it all: loving parents, a devoted brother, athletic talent, a caring girlfriend, no shortage of material comforts… and a past that haunts him with terrifying nightmares, horrifying flashbacks, and the unleashing of rage and self-destruction.

Adopted in Liberia by a successful physician volunteering for Doctors Without Borders, there is no question that Abe is among the luckiest of child soldiers to have escaped the horrors of war in West Africa.  With the support of his new family, he has tried to put his traumatic past behind him, but it will not be buried.  Now, just as Abe is concentrating on his future and the promising adulthood that lies before him, he is debilitated by post-traumatic-stress-disorder.

After a series of flashbacks accompanied by dangerous behavior, Abe is checked into a psychiatric facility for evaluation and treatment.  There he finally confronts his past, but can he reconcile his repressed memories and new awareness with his present?  Abe and his family must contend with the reality of his survival and their future together as more brutal truths from his past come to light. If he can’t succeed, it is clear that Abe’s bright future will crumble into nothingness, or worse: he could end up hurting someone he loves.

Long a champion for children’s and refugee rights with her books The Carpet Boy’s Gift, The Whispering Cloth, and Tangled Threads, Pegi Deitz Shea’s inspiration for this story came when she got to know Liberian war refugees who moved into her Connecticut town in the mid-1990s. This relationship provided Deitz Shea with a first-hand perspective on the war and on child soldiers, who, she learned, have been exploited for centuries.   

In this sensitive and heartrending novel Deitz Shea once again illuminates a difficult reality that people would prefer not to think about.  Though she does not back down from depicting the hell of Abe’s past honestly, she does it in such a way as to inform rather than depress readers. Just as Abe learns to disassociate himself from the reality he lived in Liberia, Deitz Shea gives us just the right amount of detail: enough to paint a picture, but not so much that readers are left despondent. This is doubtless the perfect formula for a book that seeks both to educate and to effect change.  As long as our awareness does not incapacitate us, we can all make a difference.

Abigail Sawyer
August 2010