Say You're One of Them

I listened to Uwem Akpan's book, Say You're One of Them. I finished it this morning. This is a collection of short stories set in Africa and told by children. Each story gives witness to the horrors some children experience growing up in Africa. Because the stories are coming from the children, we really can't tell how horrible the story is going to be until we get far enough along. The first story was about Christmas in a slum in Nairobi. In the tin hut the mother of six children gives the young boy some glue to sniff to erase the hunger pains he is feeling. The family waits together in the shack until his older sister, aged 12, a prostitute, comes home with bags of groceries so they can eat. The perils of poverty and ethnic violence become so real. This was a difficult story to read but I'm glad I did.