Linda Sue Park · 2010 · survival

Based on a true story, an eleven-year-old Dinka boy named Salva flees the Sudanese civil war on foot, walking across deserts and rivers through Ethiopia and Kenya over years in refugee camps, before resettlement in America and an eventual return to bring water home.

1. 1
   Loun-Ariik

   Gunfire interrupts Salva's school day; the eleven-year-old flees his southern Sudanese village and joins the lost boys walking east.

2. 2
   Itang

   After crossing the Nile, the Akobo desert and losing his uncle, Salva reaches a refugee camp in Ethiopia and stays for six years.

3. 3
   Kakuma

   When Ethiopia expels the refugees at gunpoint into the crocodile-filled Gilo River, Salva leads fifteen hundred boys south to a camp in Kenya.

4. 4
   Ifo

   He walks on to another Kenyan camp, where an aid worker teaches him to read and hope returns.

5. 5
   Rochester

   Chosen for resettlement, Salva flies to a new family and a new life in New York State.

6. 6
   Nya's Village

   Years later Salva returns to South Sudan to drill wells, bringing clean water to villages like Nya's and closing the circle of his long walk.