Children novel navigates horror with Poetry

The horrors and sad tales of the lengthy Guatemalan civil war is the inspiration for Skila Brown's children's novel, Caminar.

The book is structured in verse, unfolding poem by poem, and it centers on a young boy named Carlos, who must learn to grow up quickly when his mother forces him out of the house. She tells him to run away so as not to get caught in the crossfire of warring government soldiers and rebels.

This book is a very good book as the poems tell the story of a young man surviving the slaughter of his entire village and the long walk that he takes among rebel soldiers to save his grandmother's village farther up the mountain from the same fate.