How A Long Way Gone compares with The Hunger Games

The book A Long Way Gone has a few similarities with the book The Hunger Games. In both books, children are put in fighting situations. Both books also have similar themes and moods.

In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael and his friends Alhaji, Musa, Moriba, Jumah and Kanei are picked up by the government army and forced to be soldiers. They have no choice, if they do not join up with the army, they will be sent out of the village and killed by the rebels (RUF). The boys, a long with other boys and a few men, are trained for a brief period of time and then sent into battles against the rebels. Throughout their time in the war, Ishmael and his friends see and participate in acts of cruelty. These acts of cruelty include seeing people be killed, watching villages burn down, and killing people and burning down villages themselves. In the Hunger Games, Katniss, Peeta and 22 other tributes are chosen and forced into an annual hunger game-a fight to the death, where only one tribute will come out of the arena alive. Katniss, Peeta and all the other tributes have no choice, they must fight to the death in the arena or the Capitol (the people in charge) and President Snow, will punish them and their families. The tributes go through a training period to prepare them to fight in the arena. Katniss, Peeta and the other tributes see fellow tributes die and some even kill their fellow tributes.

Both A Long Way Gone and The Hunger Games have some similar themes of bad things can happen to good people and life goes on. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael and his companions were good people who were just enjoying their lives before they were forced to go on the run. They did not deserve to be forced to become child soldiers. Ishmael did not deserve to lose his family. Ishmael deserved nothing that happened to him during the war. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people, as they did to Ishmael. There may not be a reason for why those bad things happen to good people, sometimes they just do. Also, in the end, Ishmael is able to forgive himself for what he's done in the war, and is able to move on with his life. He discovers that life goes on. Life goes on even when it seems it cannot. In The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta were good people just living their lives and then suddenly they were picked as tributes for district 12 to go into the arena to fight to the death with other tributes from the other districts. Katniss, Peeta and the other tributes don't deserve to be forced to fight. All but one of them will be dead at the end of the games. None of the tributes deserves to die. They were good people that had bad things happen to them (being forced into the arena, and most of the tributes lost their lives). In the end, Katniss and Peeta are alive, having survived the Hunger Games, and have realized that their lives will go on, despite everything they have been through.

In both books the mood is grim and fearful. In A Long Way Gone, it is grim while Ishmael is on the run seeing all sorts of atrocities and while he is a child soldier committing horrific, unkind acts. It is also fearful when Ishmael is on the run from the rebels, as he is scared of them because of what he has seen them do. In The Hunger Games, the mood is grim in the arena while the tributes are killing one another. It is also fearful because Katniss is afraid that she won't make it out, and she is afraid for Peeta when he is sick and wounded.