How to use this Page

Yesterday was Peace Day – thousands of people around the world stopped to stand together for a world without conflict, for a world united:

PEACE is more than the absence of war.
It is about transforming our societies and
uniting our global community
to work together for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world for ALL. (Peace Day)

There is an ever-increasing number of children’s books being written by people who have experienced conflict first hand and whose stories give rise to discussion that may not be able to answer the question, “Why?” but at least allows history to become known and hopefully learnt from.

For younger children, such books as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino; Peacebound Trains by Haemi Balgassi; and The Orphans of Normandy by Nancy Amis all focus on children who are the innocent victims of conflict. We came across The Orphans of Normandy last summer. I was looking for something to read with my boys on holiday, when we were visiting some of the Normandy World War II sites. It is an extraordinary book: a diary written by the head of an orphanage in Caen and illustrated by the girls themselves as they made a journey of 150 miles to flee the coast. Some of the images are very sobering, being an accurate depiction of war by such young witnesses. It worked well as an introduction to the effects of conflict, without being unnecessarily traumatic.

The story of Sadako Sasaki, (more…)

One event I will be missing this year, being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, is the exhibition of Allen Say’s work to celebrate his 70th birthday, which is currently running at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art – but if you can get to Amherst, Massachusetts before 28 October, I should imagine it would be well worth doing so. Writer, Lois Lowry certainly recommends it…

We love reading Say’s books together. Particular favorites are Under the Cherry Blossom Tree: An Old Japanese Tale, which appeals especially to my younger son’s sense of the absurd; and Kamishibai Man, which has inspired my older son to create his own storyboards. We also read Home of the Brave recently, following the discussions arising from A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. Say’s rich illustrations here and the slightly abstract conveying of the story stretch young children into asking questions… the bedtime storytime can certainly be drawn out beyond the deceptive brevity of the story. As Karen Edmisten says, it is “not a happy book but an excellent one”.

Podcast Just One More Book has reviewed Emma’s Rug and I think they sum up Say’s work as a whole when they say: (more…)

It’s hard to believe that it’s summer here in the UK at the moment but the sunflower seed which Son Number One planted a couple of months ago is about 30cm tall and still growing - so we may eventually have a happy ball of sunshine in our garden to counteract the rain, which may also still be falling!

Keeping watch over every millimetre of growth has been a good time to read A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, this year’s winner of the Jane Addams Book Award for Best Picture Book. It is a beautiful and poignant story about one little American girl’s experience of adjusting to being interned during the Second World War because of her Japanese heritage; the character, Mari, is based on author Amy Lee-Tai’s own mother. You can hear Amy reading extracts from the book and talking about it here.

The book is published by the independent, non-profit publishing house Children’s Book Press, whose executive editor, Dana Goldberg, has just been interviewed by Just One More Book. It’s part of their Publishers’ Showcase, a special series of interviews with children’s book publishers – well worth listening to.