Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis (review)

Imara doesn’t know how many years she has been traveling through the Democratic Republic of Congo with the Mambas after they slaughtered her family and village. She only knows that when they cut her face during the massacre, they let a demon in, and its presence allowed her to live and become their Spirit Child. The Mambas have now made camp near a protected area of a jungle where rangers guard endangered gorillas. Meanwhile, Bobo believes the rebels have taken his ranger father and ventures out into the jungle to save his father and protect the gorillas. While the focalization shifts among Imara, Bobo, and Kitwana, a baby gorilla that comes into Imara’s care, this is really Imara’s story, and her cool indifference is the most heartbreaking evidence of the tragedy that surrounds her. As the demon screams at her internally to obey the Mambas, to watch their killings without flinching, to hold a gun to a little boy’s chest, readers quickly realize there is no evil spirit within her, only a coping mechanism that has aided her survival. The straightforward text has a simplicity that conveys the violence and despair more powerfully than any vivid description would; Imara’s brief observation of Bobo’s haunted look after he returns from a raid with the Mambas needs no further explanation. While the conclusion reunites various parties, both Bobo and Imara recognize their innocence is gone. Readers not quite ready for the reality of Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (BCCB 5/07) will find this fictional account to be an effective and emotional exploration of an ongoing crisis.