A family, not of blood but one put together by circumstances not in their control. They live in an abandoned airplane, in a unnamed country in Africa. How they came to be here we only learn from veiled hints throughout the story. They take care of each other, have learned to survive by shoplifting, taking food and other opportunities that present. Living on the margins of life, they are the unseen, or those that are so nondescript they can fit in anywhere. We are provided a few clues on the state of their country, what is happening within. All goes along well until one received a special opportunity and Khouda finds herself with the moneyed and yearns for a new, better life.

Such tenderness in the language, understanding in the portrayal of her characters.as i read the dread i was feeling and the tension mounted. I knew the book had to end and I was so afraid for this little family. How many of us don't look past the visual, deciding a person is one way because of how they dress or talk? I really think is all countries, as this book makes clear, a little more kindness and understanding would not go amiss. How easy is it to dismiss, to not let oneself see, the people behind the front.

ARC from Edelweiss ( )

Little Family, Ishmael Beah, author; Dion Graham, narrator
This novel is mainly about a diverse group of five characters who have been traumatized by the policies and violent practices of the government of their country. It is about how they cope with the issues they face everyday. They have no visible means of support nor family or friends to rely on. They seem to have lost everything. They take care of the needs of each other and share everything equally. Their backgrounds come out in fits and starts, but never seem to come out completely. They live together, hidden from society, foraging for food and supplies on a daily basis. Their memories are faulty and provide little to the reader about their pasts or how they came to be together. In bits and pieces we form our own opinions about what they have suffered that has brought them to this isolated area where they constantly have to struggle to survive a hardscrabble life.
While all the characters in the novel were interesting and clearly illustrated the terrible deprivation and poverty that had to be overcome daily, simply to eat, the character’s themselves were not clearly developed. The novel surely showed the depths to which they had to descend, for good or evil, to accomplish their purposes and goals, whether it was those working for the government attempting to yoke the population or those simply wanting to feed themselves. Still, I never fully identified with most of the characters. I did find that I sometimes admired those that were dishonest, because they seemed to have been pushed into the situation and had no other choice but to deceive or steal. Others, however, motivated by greed, were not admirable when they were discovered to be devious.
The pain and deprivation of those that struggled were the highlights of the novel as they fought to survive in a terribly unfriendly, corrupt environment. As they met people, they became more and more involved and influenced by the wicked ways of those in control, and they had to determine whether or not they would allow themselves to become corrupt or to excuse those corrupt because they seemed nice. Would they reject that world which was devoid of true and genuine feeling, when their blinders were pulled off, and they were no longer naïve? Two of the characters, in particular, find themselves embroiled in emotional conflict, one is totally duped and betrayed intentionally, and the other, quite possibly is betrayed unintentionally by someone with genuine concern, but no power to stop the evil from occurring.
I like this author’s style of writing and I found each of the characters was really interesting, but I wanted more information about them. Still, I really liked the story which painted an accurate picture of the trauma faced when a government is corrupt and the people have no power. The divide between the haves and the have-nots, the powerful and the powerless becomes greater and greater so that each dehumanizes their opposites and, eventually, each other. The names confused me as I was listening to the audio book. The narrator was superb, but I was unable to understand many of the names, places, expressions and even single words, because they were so unfamiliar to me. I went online and was able to learn more, but a reader who is not willing to expend that effort, should not get an audio, but rather, should read a print version.
As this little group becomes a family, hidden away from the rest of the world, they each have a job and position to fulfill. When the outside world filters in, they find that they, too, can be corrupted. Whether or not they allow this corruption to infect them and their group is for the reader to decide. I recommend the book highly, even though I found it a little confusing as it rolled out because it was very enlightening. ( )

An absolutely lovely piece of literature. Ishmael Beah 's writing has always been excellent, yet I think he has risen to a new level of expertise. In this story about a group of young people who live in an empty plane in the jungle and survive by their wits, Beah tells an African coming of age tale unlike any other I have read. The "little family" members are intelligent, joyful, determined, loyal, and above all, free. They are free in mind and in spirit and their love of one another has created a safe zone in a dangerous, complex, post-war society. The "little family" members must constantly discern what is safe and what is not, whether it involves food, shelter, outside friendship, love, sex, and their own dreams of the future. A wonderful, wonderful read! ( )

Khoudi was invisible in her beanie and boy's clothes. Elimane was the intellectual, always with a book, his past life a secret; he is also street-smart, a hustler. Young Namsa suffers sleep terrors rooted in some unspoken past while Khoudi watches over her. Ndevui and Kpindi play marbles for ganja.

These bright young people have been dealt horrible blows. They have banded together as a little family to survive life on the streets. They know how to blend into the crowd, tag along with a family to pass, and pocket food which they share at their secret hideout.

This makeshift family will break your heart.

Through these characters, Ishmael Beah's novel Little Family paints a picture of the social and economic disparity of Sierra Leone.

Eliname assists a stranger who then employs him and the family for undercover operations. The money they earn changes their lives.

Khoudi is a beautiful girl blossoming into womanhood. She uses her money at a hair salon and steals clothes from the beach. Self-contained and independent, her beauty attracts the attention of a wealthy girl who unknowingly helps her pass into the upper echelons of society.

A line had been crossed. Something had come to an end.~ from Little Family by Ishmael Beah

Survival comes at a cost. Feelings make you weak. When the family allows jealousy in, a series of events destroys the family and Khoudi's fantasy of a different life.

The setting is specific and foreign, full of local color, the exotic foods and the red caps daily inventing another "exercise in dehumanization."

Yet this is a story that is repeated across the world, in every city. How many children are unprotected, how many fine minds are untapped, what beauty lies hidden beneath rags? Every state holds these lost children.

I will be haunted by this little family.

I received a free book through Goodreads. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )

Ishmael Beah's first book was a memoir of his life as a child soldier in Africa. Since then he's been an important human rights activist. He has also become a novelist.

Little Family, Beah's second novel, is both understated and powerful. It follows a group of five young people (roughly ages 8 to 20) living on their own in Zimbabwe in a derelict airplane hull near an airport. The pacing is slow because Beah observes their lives with the same detail with which they observe the world around themselves. They are always on full alert, looking for items to be "corrupted" (their slang for stolen), anticipating both threats and opportunities, hiding from soldiers, and seizing odd (sometimes questionable) jobs as they arise.

Over the few weeks the novel covers the "little family" builds new relationships that force them to question their status in the country and their relationships to one another. One of them begins working for a man clearly involved in illegal finance, drug trafficking, and human smuggling. Another finds herself being pulled into a social circle of upper-class youth, who mistakenly assume she comes from a background similar to their own.

One of the aspects of this novel I particularly appreciated was the way Beah lets us see the little family's philosophizing. This is never pretentious or didactic. It is just that, like most of us, they are seeking a narrative for their own lives that makes sense of the conditions they find themselves in.

I recommend this novel very highly.

I received a free electronic review copy of Little Family from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own. ( )