Welcome to the second drop of our Summer Reading List Series, hand-picked by IPI’s Executive Assistant Caroline Bland. Caroline has already read the books below and shared her take on each as to why they’re worth reading. From an examination of colonialism in the Congo, to a deeply moving first-hand account of a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, to a magical island riddled with secrets – this reading list is the summer travel you won’t regret booking (see what I did there?). We’d love to hear what you think of Caroline’s recommendations and where your summer reading will be taking you this month. Happy reading!
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beah fled attaching rebels in Sierra Leone and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to heal. This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Caroline’s take:
“Through Theirry’s Project, IPI works to support former child combatants. This memoir gives insight into the journey from civilian to child soldier and demobilization in a way that secondhand accounts cannot capture. I further recommend listening to the audiobook narrated by the author to hear Ishmael’s story in his own voice— it is a story that you won’t soon forget.”
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.
Caroline’s take:
“When I discovered this book last year, devoured it, and subsequently forced my friends to read it, I sold it to them as a “warm hug and a breath of fresh air”. Every page is charming, hilarious, tender, and just as good on the second read. It is a love story, but one less about romance than it is about loving the peculiar, the unexpected, the mundane, and oneself.”
King Leopold’s Ghost
In the late nineteenth century, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium carried out a brutal plundering of the territory surrounding the Congo River. Ultimately slashing the area’s population by ten million, he still managed to shrewdly cultivate his reputation as a great humanitarian. A tale far richer than any novelist could invent, King Leopold’s Ghost is the horrifying account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who defied Leopold: African rebel leaders who fought against hopeless odds and a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure but unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust and participants in the twentieth century’s first great human rights movement.
Caroline’s take:
“Prior to this book, my knowledge of the Congo’s history was limited to bits of information gleaned in tangential classroom lectures and The Heart of Darkness. This sober examination of the exploitative colonial history of the Congo provides the reader with a survey of the extractive processes and structures that underpin contemporary conflict in the DRC.”
