A Long Walk to Water

A Long Walk to Water
by Linda Sue Park
J PAR


Salva’s story begins when he is 11 in 1985 in southern Sudan among the Dinka people. War comes to his village while he is in school and he flees alone into the brush. Nya’s story begins in 2008, also in Sudan, where she is 11 years old and has to walk 8 miles daily to bring water to her family of the Nuer tribe. Each chapter tells a part of Salva’s story and a part of Nya’s story with nothing to connect the two young people together except for the country of their birth. They are two young Sudanese people of tribes that are traditionally enemies to each other.

Salva sees much cruelty and death on his march to find sanctuary and safety in his war-torn land. He makes a friend along the way, only to lose him to the attack of a lion. He searches for his family, finding his uncle, who he loses to a group of bandits. He is truly one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Salva is forced to flee through a crocodile infested river when driven from a concentration camp in Ethiopia. He walks from Sudan to Ethiopia to Kenya always searching for safety. It is a miracle that he survives.

Nya walks for hours every day carrying water to her family. There is no time in her life for any other thing; no play, no education, no enjoyment. She walks barefoot through hard, rocky, thorny ground, without complaint, carrying water for her family.

Then a strange man comes to Nya’s village with machinery and a crew of workers. He is there to do a service that will forever change Nya’s life for the better. He has come to drill a well for her village. He is a strange grown man with no tribal markings on his face. Nya’s curiosity gets the best of her. She must find out who this man is, what tribe is he from and why he is in Sudan drilling for water for all the people there.

To find out how Salva’s life is saved and to learn the connection between Nya and Salva, you must read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, based on the true life story of Salva Dut of Sudan.

You can watch Linda Sue Park discuss the story here:


Reviewed by J’Ann Peacock Alvarado