Pat Leach: Children's books take a look at war

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Sometimes when I peruse the books on our New Books shelf here at Bennett Martin Public Library, I’m struck by a common theme. This happened recently when I realized that several new books were about war. This may reflect the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but thinking back, I realize that many children’s books have a war setting. They might involve children on the home front, the impact of nearby fighting, or the intensity of involvement in conflict. I chose several of these for today’s column. They fall into a variety of library categories, including fiction, nonfiction, and picture books.

In James Rumford’s “Silent Music: a Story of Baghdad” (Roaring Brook, 2008), a fictional boy living in Baghdad tells how Arabic calligraphy soothes his soul.  Young Ali loves the things you’d expect, such as soccer and music.  He also loves calligraphy, “I love to make the ink flow.” In the fighting in Baghdad in 2003, Ali closes himself in his room and practices calligraphy.  He notes the difficulty his pen seems to have in writing the word for “peace.” But that one word in Arabic ends the story, highlighted above boys playing soccer in silhouette against an evening sky. The story is simple and straightforward. Rumford’s illustrations employ collage and his own calligraphy. Many are based on photographs posted by American soldiers.  A picture book like this is often used with primary graders to develop empathy for children in other places and situations.

“The Bombed House” by Jonny Zucker (Stone Arch, 2007) is part of a series for reluctant readers. Designated as a beginning chapter book, its intended audience is upper elementary students who need a shorter book, with limited vocabulary and simple sentence structure.  It’s set in London during the bombing of World War II.  Two brothers realize that someone is hiding in a bombed-out house. Against their father’s orders, they investigate, and thus witness a downed German pilot taken into custody.   Cartoonlike black-and-white illustrations appear on many pages. A glossary, questions for further consideration and a Web  site with more information are included. 

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For upper elementary and middle school, “Shooting the Moon” by Frances O’Roark Dowell (Atheneum, 2008) features a girl whose brother enlists in the Army during the Vietnam War.  Jamie Dexter volunteers in the Recreation Center of the Army Base where her father is a colonel.  She plays endless rounds of rummy there, partly to channel her excitement about her brother heading off to war. She’s always considered soldiering the highest calling. She’s confused when her parents aren’t thrilled about her brother’s joining up. Once he’s “in country,” he doesn’t send Jamie letters. Instead, he sends rolls of film. Jamie learns to use the center’s dark room, and she sees Vietnam through her brother’s eyes. Dowell keeps the story moving forward, with Jamie observing and adjusting to the reactions of people around her.  When her brother goes missing, her card-playing buddy and her family play cards through the night. As she explains, that was before they knew that her brother would be a prisoner of war for two years. Dowell doesn’t milk the drama for more than it’s worth, but she does set the context solidly. 

Illustrator, Uri Shulevitz, tells a part of his own wartime story in “How I Learned Geography” (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008). He and his parents fled from Poland to Turkestan in 1939. They were very poor, sharing a small home with another couple. One day his father returned from the market without bread, but bearing a large map of the world. Young Shulevitz and his mother were furious. Eventually Shulevitz began to take flights of fancy with that map, making rhymes of the names of places, and imagining himself in deserts and on beaches. It is no wonder that he became a writer and illustrator. His pictures here convey a sense of Turkestan even as they perfectly mirror intense emotion. A final author’s note gives more background about his early life and development as an artist. This begs to be read to a group. We often think of picture books as for younger children, but this may be most effective shared with upper elementary students.

“Sunrise Over Fallujah” by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic, 2008) meets the high standards set by his previous books for teen readers. “Birdy,” whose actual name is Robin Perry, tells the story. He’s nicknamed by the members of his unit in Iraq. They arrive in Fallujah just before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. As members of a Civilian Affairs group, they’re to connect with civilians and help to build support for America and democracy.  But they carry guns and find themselves in confusing situations without strong guidance from the Rules of Engagement.  Birdy has his first experience of killing people when defending another soldier from rapists.  With his unit, he helps to negotiate ransom for kidnapped children, only to learn that the situation was nothing like what he expected, and that it could fall apart in seconds. Letters home to his parents and uncle (a character in a previous Myers novel) help to round out Birdy’s story. Readers likely will understand that Myers thoroughly cleaned up the soldiers’ language. But he’s spot-on in describing the feelings of a young soldier, trying to do the right thing, wanting to convince his parents of that, and hoping to return home. 

Pat Leach, formerly supervisor of Youth Services, is now director of Lincoln City Libraries.