ASIUNIA by Joanna Papuzinska – Synopsis Talking about war is never easy or pleasant. But talking about it is essential – to warn and to remember. But how to talk about war with a child without passing on fear? The answer can be the book “Asiunia”. The author Joanna Papuzinska is a great children’s writer. When she was a small girl she experienced what it meant to live at the time of World War II in Poland. When the fighting had started she was just five years old, celebrating her birthday. At that time she didn’t know that soon she would be separated from her family and that she will loose some of them forever. On her birthday, most important were her presents: a pencil, rubber and a magic red-blue crayon. One day she was a happy little girl surrounded by her family and next she had to leave her home and be moved from house to house, where strange people tried to look after her and make her safe. After the war she was re-joined with most of her family, but those times stayed with her forever. ”Asiunia” shows the war seen through the eyes of a small child. Children are honest- they don’t embellish or exaggerate. They describe things as they are - simply and with attention to details. A small girl - the author herself at that time - notices everything that happens around her and tells us about it in detail. She notices that the women that looked after her weren’t able to laugh and barely smiled. Another time she speaks about hunger, the lack of warm clothes, the fact that she didn’t have many things, even her own mug. So this book will let children talk about war without putting them through difficult emotions. But when after reading the book, children will ask why Asiunia’s mother did not come back, it is all right to tell the truth, because war was like that.