A Long Walk to Water Book Report

While reading A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park, I realized that the books main theme was family/relationships. I realized that this was the books message through reading different segments and main points of the book. The book showed this off when the main character, Salva, was devastated by the loss of his family near the beginning of the book. He was separated from them during a civil war that his country, Sudan, was going through. After he accepted his family being taken away from him, he learned to fend for himself and even constructed close relationships with others. He becomes close with Marial, a young boy from his tribe (The Dinka Tribe), his uncle whom he is reunited with, a family that adopts him and who loves and supports him, and his family after he is finally reunited them with after many years throughout the story. The theme of family/relationships was very central to the book. Salva was constantly losing and gaining close friends and family. Not only did he learn to rely on himself, but he also strongly relied on others love, and when he would build a relationship with another character in the book, it would be strong and caring. I believe that the author used this specific theme of family/relationships since Salva’s story is a true story, and as he experienced all that he did, he really did value others in his life judging by all of the loss and heavy friendships that he has been through. While I was reading A Long Walk To Water I learned how important it is to stay motivated. All through the book Salva was determined to do many different things, like keep himself alive during the war, reunite with his family and even build a well that provided clean water in his village, and overtime, Salva was able to complete every task he put his mind to. He even spread the word about his clean water well foundation my spending his days and nights on the streets begging. Overall, Salva stuck with whatever he put his mind to and that taught me to stay motivated,