In the first chapters of A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park introduces her two main characters: Nya, an eleven-year-old girl, and Salva, an eleven-year-old boy. Almost immediately, Park presents Nya’s major conflict in stark, blunt terms: she must fight for her survival and that of her family every day by walking long distances to fetch water. On the other hand, when Park first introduces Salva, he sits in the schoolhouse near his village, daydreaming about his life with his family. Park provides a richness of detail about Salva’s somewhat idyllic childhood, which his story’s inciting incident will shatter. By the end of the first chapter, the violence of the Sudanese Civil War has reached Salva’s village and plunged him into a years’ long battle against external enemies—withstanding the ravages of human violence and Mother Nature’s unrelenting harshness—and against the internal demons of despair and hopelessness.

Park tells Nya’s story in the present tense, and the limited details she provides about Nya convey the sense that not much changes for her from one day to the next. Her story follows a circular plot line. On any given day she sees the gray and green on the horizon as she approaches the pond, just as she did yesterday and will tomorrow. Her days are characterized by sameness, and the reader is limited to knowing only that which is most essential—Nya is responsible for fetching water for her family, be it at the pond or at the lake. Nya’s walking brings her to the same place because what that place provides, more than any detail Park could describe, is what’s most important. Nya also shares the responsibility for responding to her family’s crises, as when her walking shifts from walking for water to walking with her mother and Akeer on the long journey to the medical clinic. The ever-present threat of deadly conflict with rival tribes adds another layer of fear to Nya and her family’s daily struggle to survive.

As Nya’s story approaches its conclusion, she ends up where she started, but her perception of the world has changed, brought about by the climactic event of men appearing in her village to drill for water. When clear, clean water finally gushes from the well, aspects of Nya’s personality, of which Park has revealed little to this point, come alive. She banters and jokes with her father, and she experiences wonder and awe, and excitement. She realizes the water’s far-reaching significance. The well will resolve the conflict presented by the everyday struggle for one of life’s most basic necessities. It will allow Nya the opportunity to go to school and to learn about the world. When she learns the well is for everyone, even rival tribes, she recognizes that it will offer the possibility of living in peace and harmony rather than in fear of violence. The water will have a profound cleansing and life-giving influence in Nya’s world. At her story’s conclusion, Nya cannot help but be immensely grateful.

Park tells Salva’s story in past tense, yet it speeds ahead faster than Nya’s, richer in detail. Salva’s journey is characterized by constant forward motion. He is at the mercy of his experiences, many of which are beyond his control, but at the same time he is learning and growing because of them. For him, the smoke on the horizon when he looks behind him toward his burning village signifies the burning down of his old life and foreshadows the danger, destruction, and search for a new life on the horizons ahead. There are ebbs and flows in Salva’s story arc. The rising action of his walking is a series of progressive complications, dilemmas, and climaxes. His walking always brings him somewhere new, and that somewhere, even when it seems to improve his lot and suggest hints of hopefulness (such as befriending Marial, or finding his uncle) ends up resulting in more suffering and deepening despair.

When Salva witnesses the horrific killing of Uncle, he faces a dilemma or crisis; he must either give in to despair or continue forward. He chooses to go on and makes it to the refugee camp in Ethiopia. But when soldiers close the camp, he faces yet another dilemma—to cross the river or not. He crosses the river and survives and is faced with the choice of where to go next. One can argue that the choice to walk to Kenya serves as the major climax of Salva’s story. Had he not walked to Kenya, the series of events that followed may never have brought him to the United States, and eventually back to Sudan.

Years pass when Salva is in the refugee camps. Park reveals few details about Salva’s life in the camps, only referring to them in vague, broad strokes. The same applies to when Salva is in Rochester attending college—broad strokes, few specific details. These years are characterized by sameness, much like quite a bit of Nya’s life, and Park’s narration is less detailed in order to skim over them. But when Salva discovers that his father might still be alive, he faces yet another dilemma—should he go to Sudan to find him? Here, Park describes yet another important event in a series of climactic events: Salva reuniting with his father. This reunion solidifies for Salva how he will fulfill his goal of helping others: he will bring clean water to Sudan. At the end of the book, the plot lines of Nya’s and Salva’s stories converge, at the well. Nya’s life is now about to change drastically, just as Salva’s had at this story’s beginning.