Content: warriors

Summary:

The Goopeater is the magical coming-of-age tale of Arya, a 13-year-old boy from San Francisco who is tormented by bullies in the school for eating "goop". In the wake of an accident that has left his once-vibrant mother a husk of her former self, Arya clings to the only bond left: an old, battered copy of an ancient book about good versus evil. One night, he is sucked through a crack in his floorboards and drawn into a magical world. Guided by the book which is the very last copy left, he travels the land, meeting a sage who has walked the earth since the beginning of time, monkey warriors and fearsome demons. Arya soon discovers that this new world is, in fact, an old world, and that he has stepped into the story of the Ramayana, the setting and characters before him mirroring the pages of the book that he prizes so dearly. When his book is stolen by the villain of the story, the demon king Anavaar, who wants to erase history and rewrite it from his own vantage point, Arya must embark on his own quest to retrieve the beloved keepsake. Aided by a mysterious Medicine Woman and guided by the principles of ancient warrior training, he overcomes the trials of the demons. In facing his fears, he learns that the Medicine Woman is indeed an embodiment of his mother's Higher Self, the true soul of the kind and vibrant mother he remembers, and that Anavaar is actually a conglomerate of the bullies that torment his daily existence. Realizing that he is not alone and coming to terms with his heritage, Arya is able to move forward with the battle, accept his mother's death, and finally go home where he is no longer known as the Goopeater.

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Summary:

This is a subject that has haunted me since I was a small girl with two uncles in the Korean War. One who slept with a gun under his pillow so we had to be careful waking him. He would break out in a sweat and moan. Most likely reliving. Which is worse? Dying on a battlefield or the walking dying who live each day on the battlefield they left so long ago. What are the 'trues reasons man goes off to battle?' I would thing they are varied but I would venture they had no clue what they were getting into. Nor did they truly understand who and why they were killing. To question your government was simply not done. Those who did lived in fear and isolation. I have seen the walking dead. On street corners, silent in wheel chairs unable to meat the eyes of the onlookers. For what will he or she see? Disgust? Pity? Any true understanding how devastated these souls are and how for some, death would have been kinder. There is no way I can understand nor fully see into the heart and life of one at war. I can't. But I do recognize the horror when I see it reflected and the total lack of life in blank staring eyes who long ago gave up the will to get anyone to understand.

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