The book I am reading for my Global Ed. ELA class is AK by Peter Dickinson. AK is about this child soldier, named Paul Kagomi. Paul only feels safe when he carries his AK around with him. This takes place in Nagala, Africa. The soldiers have to sleep on the floors of mud shacks and the soldiers have to hide behing bushes.

Paul keeps on stepping into and out of reality. Every child soldier has an "uncle." It is not the uncle that is related to you. In Africa, an uncle is who takes care of you, teaches you the craft of war, keep an eye on you and protects you. American uncles don't do that kind of stuff. Paul is lucky, his uncle is actually his uncle.

One major culture difference in this book compared to American culture now is children don't fight in wars in America. Sometimes I wonder why Africa is different then the U.S politically, economically, and defensively.

Questions in my head while reading the book while reading this book are: Why is war being fought? Why is housing in Africa so bad? Why is the political system bad? Why are children being used as soldiers? Why is transporttaion so bad? Why is health so bad? The cause of some of these problems are the economy. Africa has no moneyfor houses, tranportation, health, and government.

The cause of the other problems and the bad economy is the climate. Half of Africa is above the equator and half of Africa is below the equator. Africa is mostly covered by desert. Desertification forces families and children to move away from the desert. Pretty soon the whole continent of Africa will be covered. Desertification limits the retreival of natural resources.

If natural resources can't be retreived, Africa can't get money because it won't be able to sell any. Africa is also a sight of Middle East terriost organizations. Take for example Somalia. Pirates are sinking ships off the coast. Other countries send in resources but the pirates attack them.

The one big question that still needs to be answered is: Why are children being used as soldiers?