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Ramiro, Boy Soldier
Ineke Holtwijk
Translated by Wanda Boeke
 
 Ages: 12 and up
Grades: 7-12
Pages: 320
13-year-old Ramiro is determined to join the liberation forces. As his self-confidence grows, his doubts about the way these forces work grows as well. He decides to escape them.
"Forget your mother, your father, your brothers, sisters, grandpas, grandmas, and you name it. They belong to civilian life. Now the jungle and the mountains are your home, and the People’s Army is your family.” This is the advice Ramiro is given when he first holds a gun in his hand at the age of thirteen. He has run away from home to join a group of guerilla resistance fighters. Forced to march through miles of jungle until he falls to the ground unconscious, shoot a fellow comrade for treason, and betray his family, the exciting life he thought he was choosing quickly becomes a nightmare. There seems to be no way out, and each day brings with it more perplexing and horrifying realities. In the tradition of the national bestseller, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, this novel is based on the true story of a boy living and fighting in Colombia in 2002.

Reviews
“A realistic story about terrorism, about the belief in motto's, but also a story about a child soldier who's a human being after all.”
     —Kidsweek
about the author
Ineke Holtwijk has always travelled, mainly in Africa until 1989, and then in South America. In 1992 she became news correspondent for the Dutch Daily newspaper de Volkskrant covering Latin America. Her first book published in the United States was Asphalt Angels, which was named a Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Award and an ALA Best Books for Young Adults.