The several short stories in this book are brilliantly written semi-fictional accounts of atrocities throughout the African continent from the perspective of children.

Akpan's portrayal of life in the many countries in which these stories take place feels (and no doubt is) incredibly authentic, and each story has a different texture as the author spans the bounds between classes and cultures. Additionally, the author refrains from outright moralizing, which saves his work from becoming the Christian polemic that I feared it might be given the author's biography.

Fair warning: They are, none of them, happy stories, and herein lies my only regret with this book: It did little to expand my view of the African continent beyond the stereotypes and common wisdom of war, hunger, strife, and religiously motivated madness.

That said, it was clearly never the author's intention to focus on the progress that's been made in many African nations, but rather to broaden the reader's understanding of the atrocities that have occurred there. In this, he was quite successful.