As bullets ring and bombs are dropped, children watch—mostly from the sidelines, but occasionally in the direct line of fire. Unaware of the political issues or power struggles behind the battle, all they know are the human, emotional consequences of this thing called war. This collection examines all of war’s implications for young people—from those caught in the line of fire to the children of the veterans of wars long past. Critically acclaimed author Jennifer Armstrong brings together 12 powerful voices in young people's literature to explore the realities of war from a child's perspective. The settings vary widely—the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an attempted coup in Venezuela, the American Civil War, crisis in the Middle East—but the effects are largely the same. In war, no life is ever left untouched. In war, lives are shattered.
Author
Jennifer Armstrong learned to read and write in Switzerland, in a small school for English speaking children on the shores of Lake Zurich. The school library had no librarian and no catalog – just shelves of interesting books. She selected books on her own, read what she could, and made up the rest. It was perfect. As a result, she made her career choice – to become an author – in first grade. When she and her family returned to the U.S. she discovered that not all children wrote stories and read books, and that not all teachers thought reading real books was important. Nevertheless, she was undaunted. Within a year of leaving college she was a free-lance ghost writer for a popular juvenile book series, and before long published her first trade novel, Steal Away, which won her a Golden Kite Honor for fiction. More than fifty additional novels and picture books followed, and before long she also tried her hand at nonfiction, winning an Orbis Pictus Award and a Horn Book Honor for her first nonfiction book, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World. In late 2003 she will travel to the South Pole with the National Science Foundation to do research for a book on ice.
