War Brothers

Kitino Jacob is the protagonist of War Brothers. A 14-year-old boy, he lives in the city of Gulu with his parents and various servants. Jacob is from a rich family and is naïve and overconfident about his place in the world at the start of the novel. In the opening chapters, Jacob prepares to go to his boarding school with his best friend Tony. However, once they arrive, both boys and most of the other students are kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army and enslaved as child soldiers. This experience changes Jacob from a happy-go-lucky teenager to a world-weary survivor.

Jacob’s character arc charts his personal growth and emotional maturity. His experiences in the Lord’s Resistance Army move him farther away from his family and closer to his fellow child soldiers, particularly Hannah, Oteka, and Norman. In the beginning, Jacob doesn’t consider himself a leader of the other boys, but by the end of the book, he’s acknowledged in the group as the bravest and smartest among them. Jacob constantly considers his situation and plans accordingly, which culminates in the climactic escape from Joseph Kony’s army camp, which Jacob planned and executed without being caught.