There has been a lot of recent (last 3 years or so anyway) fiction about the child soldiers in Africa. My favorite is "Allah is Not Obliged" by Ahmadou Khourouma (title is from the saying "Allah is not obliged to be fair about everything He does here on earth"). This book is written from the point of view of one of the child soldiers and manages to capture the tragedy of the circumstances and combine it with almost a Mark Twain-style boy's adventure narrative. For some reason you can't find it if you put in the title in our catalog computer, but you can if you know and can spell the author's name. "K-H-O-U-R-O-U-M-A".

Jincy Willett has a new book out!! Very very good. Called "The Writing Class." A mystery, too.