AK

AK is a book for young adults, ages 12 and up, that's unlikely to be used as the basis for an episode of a television "After School Special." AK is about a boy with his own gun, raised by a guerrilla group during a civil war. "My mother was the war," protagonist Paul Kagomi says. "She was a witch, a terrible demon, an eater of people, but she looked after me. It's not my fault that I loved her." Paul, of the mythical African nation of Nagala, is one of a group of homeless boys trained in warfare by the National Liberation Army. As the civil war subsides, Paul faces a life with no skills except the ones he learned for battle. AK won a Whitbread Prize in 1990.