A Long Walk to Water

Content Ratings

No Romance

There is no romantic content; both protagonists are children and the novel is entirely focused on survival and resilience.

Moderate Themes

Salva experiences war, forced displacement, starvation, the deaths of companions, and prolonged separation from his entire family; the novel asks young readers to confront extreme suffering and global inequality.

Moderate Violence

Salva witnesses the shooting of his uncle by soldiers; his village is attacked and family members disappear; children die from starvation, disease, and violence during the refugee march; violence is depicted with clarity and emotional honesty.

Synopsis

Based on a true story, this novel alternates between the experiences of Salva, a Lost Boy of Sudan forced to flee his village during the civil war in 1985, and Nya, a girl in present-day Sudan who walks hours each day to fetch water for her family. Their stories converge in a powerful and hopeful conclusion about resilience and the possibility of change. Short, gripping, and deeply humanizing, this book makes distant global suffering viscerally real for young readers.