The drawings are highly unconventional but vivid and quite beautiful. I really liked how the boys are drawn to appear much older than they actually are. The story itself is quite sad but also uplifting and touching. And informative. It really made me interested in the issue which is certainly one of the things the book strives for.

Age: 4th-6th grade

A fictional story based on the true events of the lost boys of Sudan. Through many tribulations, Garang must co-lead a large group of children (in reality 30,000 refugee children) under the age of 15 across Sudan into Ethiopia. The boys hold on to love and their religious faith to escape their war-torn country and grapple with their new reality.

While the story is captivating and filled with facts, it does not work well as a fictional picture story. The drawings capture the trauma well but fail at the love the boys kept in the hearts. The facts are to crammed packed for an effective fictional story.

For older grade school children, Brothers in Hope is an excellent introduction to the Lost Boys of Sudan. Williams strikes a good balance between depicting the horrors the boys faced without providing overwhelming or overly-upsetting detail for children. The prose is descriptive and dense on each page, and might work well in a classroom or in a one-on-one situation, but would not be suitable for storytime. Illustrations were not to my tastes at all -- in fact, I found them a little scary, with detailed and enlarged facial details on impressionist-esque bodies and simplified backdrops.

It's an important story of the thousands of boys displaced by war in Sudan.
There was an aspect of american white saviors and pushing religion that rubbed me the wrong way.

Good children's book for introduction to refugees from a civil war

I read A Long Walk to Water to my class every year. I will add this book to that unit. It will be a great pairing.

Powerful picture book about the "Lost Boys" of Sudan. The book, a fictionalized account based on the true stories of many of the boys, tells of a a young boy who is startled by an attack on his village while attending to his family's cows. When he returns to the village, he finds that it is deserted, his family gone. Soon other boys appear, but still no adults. The boys decide to head to Ethiopia, where they have heard that it may be safe. The book details the dangerous journey and the adult roles the boys must prematurely assume. After their arrival in Ethiopia, they finally feel safe until the was inches closer and they must again flee--this time to Kenya.

Very well written with great illustrations. I remember reading about Williams (Jane Fonda's daughter) in What is the What. The stories are quite similar--but this is definitely more child-friendly (as it should be). Williams does a good job of showing the dangers and hardships that the boys faced without dwelling on death. She explains the situation clearly and is a great book that can begin to teach children about the world around us. Although I wish the subject matter had no reason to exist, I'm glad this book was written.

4.5 stars. The text is wonderful. The illustrations are good but not a style that appeals to my tastes.