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Given our website’s current focus on war, peace and social justice in children’s books, the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai have made me keenly aware that our challenges are many on the path to a more peaceful world. Kids and young adults are cognizant of the two wars America has been fighting against terrorism since 9/11 and of the latest terrorist attacks in India. Understandably, they have a lot to try to make sense of and get to grips with. Clearly, they can’t do it on their own.

Kids ask lots of tough questions in general, but their questions about terrorism and war are especially hard to answer. As parents, teachers and responsible adults, should we protect our children from war- and terrorism-related news, and if not, how should we explore the topics with them?

What to say and how to say it to children clearly depend on their age and maturity level, but however we choose to handle their questions, we must be thoughtful, as times of war and conflict are fertile breeding grounds for prejudice through stereotyping. We adults must reconcile the dilemma of explaining terrorism, and why nations have enemies, armies and go to war, while also promoting non-violence.

An article on Dr. Spock’s website, on how to talk to older children and teens about acts of terrorism and war encourages parents and teachers to ask them questions: “Are those who commit acts of terrorism fundamentally different from the rest of us? Are there circumstances under which we could imagine ourselves acting as the terrorists have? Has our government ever taken actions that might appear, from the point of view of others around the world, to be terribly wrong? Can we understand terrorism without accepting it? Is it important for us to try?”

There are no simple right and wrong answers, of course. What is important is the attempt to understand—a very difficult challenge that books can help make less daunting.The Flame Tree by Richard Lewis, for instance, is a wonderful post 9/11 story, set in Java, that tries to show us the true Islam instead of the extreme version the media often presents.

On the more general topic of war, we have the example of Jennifer Armstrong, “historyteller” and author, who edited Shattered: Stories of Children and War, a collection of twelve stories written by young adult authors examining war’s implications in young people’s lives. She has written a beautiful piece in praise of war books for children—and I conclude this post with her thought-provoking reasoning:

Being a writer, I must acknowledge the richness of war as a subject for fiction. Great stories arise from conflict, and there can be no greater conflict than war. To whom do you owe greater loyalty? To your family, your friend, your religion, your ideals, your country? For what would you die? For what would you kill? These are soul-baring questions, and I think they are as important for children to consider as they are for adults… If you really want to teach young readers about peace, give them books about war.

Children are naturally idealistic and righteous. They have a fine-tuned sense of justice. Literature about war gives young readers the chance to think of what is just and unjust, to develop the capacity for philosophic inquiring doubt. It gives them the chance to contemplate the alternative to peace. When they read Faithful Elephants: A True story of Animals, People and War [by Yukio Tsuchiya] and cry out in dismay, ‘But it’s not right!’, they are absolutely correct. It’s not. This, it seems to me, is the preferable attitude with which to greet war, not, ‘It’s inevitable!’.

For more book suggestions and resources related to the theme of war and peace in children’ books, check out these reviews, as well as our reading lists and resource pages.

A lipogram is a kind of constrained writing in which a particular letter, or groups of letters, are missing.  Imagine writing a paragraph, for example, excluding the letter ‘e.’   It’s tougher than you think, especially, if you decide to omit vowels — the linguistic glue, as it were — between the consonants.  In A Voweller’s Bestiary, author JonArno Lawson takes a unique stab at the lipogrammatic genre.  He has created an alphabet book of animals based on vowel combinations, rather than on the usual initial letter form.  The lipogram part comes in when he excludes certain vowels from each set.  Sound complicated?  Well, what’s a constraint (and possible consternation!) for the poet in terms of rules can be a delight to the ear and eye of the reader.  And that is how a Voweller’s Bestiary was received by my son, listening to the contorted word music of “Ants and Aardvarks” or “Jaguar, Tarantula, Tangalunga” or “Tortoise, Porpoise, Crocodile.”  Reading poetry can attune your child to the sounds of language and help them appreciate the elasticity of words.

Another poetry book I tried out on my younger child was Rascally Rhymes by Jordan Troutt, illustrated by Sarah Preston-Bloor.  This book, also an alphabet one, takes names and makes ‘rascally rhymes’ with them.  There’s Ian who eats “worms and toads/and rocks and snails/a la mode.” or Gillian who “stomps like a gorillian.”  After we finished reading this book, my daughter and I went through all the names and tried to see if we knew anyone with the same name.  That was fun!  Palimpsest Press, who publishes this book, is now offering a contest on their blog for children to makes rhymes.  Reading this book definitely had an effect on my daughter.  While sorting laundry together the other night, she held up a sock and said “Mom, this sock doesn’t have a rhyme!”

Although the Tiger’s Choice, the PaperTigers’ online reading group, selects books that are written for children but can be enjoyed by adults as well, National Reading Group Month has brought to mind those books written for adults that younger readers might adopt as their own favorites, and that could launch impassioned discussions between parents and children, teachers and students, or older and younger siblings.

The books on this week’s list are books recommended for teenagers, with content that may be beyond the emotional grasp of pre-adolescents. All of them are available in paperback and in libraries.

1) Ricochet River by Robin Cody (Stuck in a small Oregon town, two teenagers find their world becomes larger and more complex when they become friends with Jesse, a Native American high school sports star.)

2) The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (Alice is twelve, growing up on a modern-day Wyoming ranch with a mother who rarely leaves her bed, a father who is haunted by the memory of Alice’s rebellious and gifted older sister who ran off with a rodeo rider, and an overly active imagination.)

3) Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen (The author of Hatchet tells the true story of how he raced a team of huskies across more than 1000 miles of Arctic Alaska in what Alaskans call The Last Great Race.)

4) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (This autobiography of a young girl growing up in revolutionary Iran and told in the form of a graphic novel is rich, original, and unforgettable.)

5) From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe (An amazing odyssey of a boy from the jungles of Burma who became a political exile and a Cambridge scholar, this Kiriyama Prize winner is a novelistic account of a life filled with adventures and extraordinary accomplishments.)

6) In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (The Mirabal sisters were beautiful, gifted, and valiant women who were murdered by the Dominican Republic government that they were committed to overthrow. Their true story is given gripping and moving life by their compatriot, Julia Alvarez.)

As the weather becomes colder and the days grow shorter, find your favorite teenager, choose a book, and plunge into the grand adventure of reading and sharing!