A long walk to water is a very moving, hooking, and educational tale. This dual narrative follows two stories, both taking place in Sudan. One is in 2008 about a girl named Nya who walks 8 hours a day to a pond in order to get water for her family. The other story takes place in 1985 and is about a boy named Salva and his war-torn village. When he gets separated from his family he goes on a determined march through Africa with a group of people from his village who are also lost. He is searching for safety, food, but most importantly his family. These two stories eventually cross in the most surprising, yet moving way.
I would have to say that both Salva and Nya are the protagonists. Both have conflict, Nya's being that she has to walk 8 hours a day to try and find clean water for her family but especially for her sick sister. You immediately begin to try to sympathize with her because having clean water is a gift that many of us take for granted. Whenever there is a character that is struggling for something you have, it makes you think about how lucky you are to have that thing no matter if it's water or anything else. Also whenever a character is struggling you feel bad for them which makes you like the character much more. Nya is a quiet character but we,(the reader's) get to hear some of her thoughts which definitely makes you see things about her that people on the outside wouldn't get to see, if you weren't in her head. Even though the story is written in third person you still get more of an idea of what she's thinking about then if you were on the outside.
Salva is probably even more so the protagonist then Nya is. His struggle is probably even worse. When he is separated from his family and walking alone with strangers he doesn't know, all you want to do is reach out and give him a hug, but obviously you can't because it's a book. Anyway Salva is a special character. You watch him go through a struggle but you also watch him get even stronger.
Salva changes a lot through this book. In the beginning he is scared, alone, and afraid. At first he has no one he knows and thinks all his family is dead. But when he sees that his uncle is in the same group as him he is overjoyed. His uncle pushes him to keep going and to stay strong even though he is hungry thirsty and ready to give up. Salva watches his uncle die right before his eyes and that makes him want to find safety and his family even more. I think that in life sometimes the terrible things that happen also shape us as people. After Salva was able to re-unite with his family and come out alive what he wanted to do was to help others and find clean water and safety for others before they would even have to imagine going through what he went through. Even though Salva had to watch terrible things happen to people he cared for, it made him a fighter in the end. It also made him a better person, a person who wanted to work and to help others- others like Nya who didn't have clean water, and that's what Salva ended up doing.
Salva and Nya both had major conflicts and also minor conflicts. The major ones being war, and no clean water. The minor ones being wanting to find your family and trying to get your sick sister better. No matter how big the conflict is there is always another person or thing holding you back. I don't necessarily think that there was one specific antagonist, considering there was more then one story to follow but I think that the whole idea of mean bad people standing in their way, like evil men who killed Salva's uncle ect.
Both Salva and Nya learn and change through the story. They both learn to fight through struggle and in the end if you fight as hard as you can and you get lucky you will pull out in the end. This is a very moving story and I liked it a lot. I would also highly suggest it to others to read(if I didn't spoil it too much!)
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