Selena Garcia experienced a dark and miserable childhood. As an eight-year-old girl, she is very mature for her age. Born in a single-parent family but not resigned towards relatives' abuse, she is often deemed as an impolite and rude girl. What's worse, she is often beaten and abused by one of her uncles who is addicted to drugs and drinks. Even her poor mother and little sister can't avoid such maltreatment. However, there is no one to blame her uncle and stop his action but to regard everything misfortunate happen to them as a natural thing. While growing up in such a family, Selena still hold her values firmly. She always believes that a person should be respected not because of his or her age but noble qualities and great deeds. All of persons like her uncles should be punished due to his evil behaviours. Althogh she is such a little girl, she is brave enough to stand out to protect those she really cares about and love. It's difficult to justify whether the bravery beyond age is a blessing.
One day, the bastard, Selena's evil uncle, took some rascals who is idle, drunk and complain everything to her house. Hearing of the scream and cry from her little sister, Selena ran out from her room. Seeing that her little sister's clothes were torn to pieces and those rascals is about to rape her little sister with evil laughters. She fetched a knife hidden under her pillow by herself before and stabbed those rascals from their back unconsciously. Seeing red blood on the ground, she felt her mind go blank and what happend just now was like a dream……
Since that, she became wordless at school. She could gaze at the sky for a long time and imagined where clouds would go. She dare not to recall the thing happened that day, yet it's difficult to forget it totally and the scene where blood on ground is like a river while her sister were quivering in the blood appears over and over again in her mind. She lives in fear every day and she was not clear the reason why she is scared, and what she is scared of, the scene or herself?
Selena's life at school is also not easy. Because of her silence , she became the object that most students bully and humuliate. She always endured and didn't response. At that time, the news that president whom was elected recently recruits children to be future soldiers was spread around the country. Selena was called into the director's office and was invited to join the program mentioned in the news. She was hesitant initially but was told that she would be sent into prison because she had killed some people if she didn't join the army. Finally, she was took a secret place to be trained and became a stong girl……
Selena's dark childhood in her big family is caused by her relatives' wrong ideas and tolerance for her evil uncle. Due to losing her father, Selena, her sister and her mother live a tough life in this family. Her grandmother and her aunts are sympathetic about their expeience and often persuaded her uncles, while voice of women in her family is always neglected. Therefore, there is no one could save them from family's suffering. However, Selena who witnessed family violence and ingorance towards children and females since childhood don't accept those absurd ideas hold by her relatives, neither she endure voilence just like a docile lamp, she chose response to violence through violence eventually, killing rascals who are to rape her sister. It's hard to justify such a tragedy from an objective perspective.
What impress me the most is that the scene where Selena is being bullyed by her classmates. Several students dumped dishes on her head while students around them burst out laughters, and she couldn't help asking them why she was always their objection of bullying, those students said, because you never response to our humiliation. I think of evilness of human nature that people often tend to despise and bully the weak or those who looks like weak but fear and respect those strong. If you was bullyed, you must learn to protest and attack them back to protect yourself. It's should be believed that there must be the kind in this world but it's also must admitted that the evil also exist in the meantime. No matter whether you think there is the evil i the world, you must try to be strong enough to protect youself and people you really love. You don't bully the weak while you must not be bullied.
The complete novel can be read from Children Not Soldiers
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