War Is Over; by David Almond

Abstract

Reviewed by: War Is Over; by David Almond Elizabeth Bush Almond, David War Is Over; illus. by David Litchfield. Candlewick, 2020 [128p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536209860 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781536211931 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 3-6 While fathers fight the Great War across the Channel, the citizens of John’s British town do their part: mothers work in the armaments factory, and children are expected to participate fully through patriotic pride and enthusiastically correct attitude. To this end, head teacher Mr. McTavish takes his students on a field trip to the factory, where he invites them to feast their eyes “on the wonders that are wrought here in this place!” John is overwhelmed by the guns and cannon and shells, connecting them with his mother’s gently edited remarks on the shrapnel she packs into ammunition, and also with “his dad in the trench, wearing the useless thin steel helmet.” Equally disturbing is the community’s treatment of Uncle Gordon, the relative of a classmate, who is beaten and ostracized as a coward for publicly orating on the innocence of German children caught up in the war. A photograph scrap of one such boy named Jan sets off dreams and apparitions in John, who now confronts his mother with harder questions for which she has no satisfying answers. This earnest antiwar piece raises many potential plotlines and philosophical themes, but it does not have the length to follow them through; likewise, Almond’s use of emotionally fraught prose argues against interpreting the slim novella as parable. Litchfield’s black and white illustrations, though, are often stunningly effective in conveying the mesmerizing repetition of military materiel [End Page 421] that suggests war without end. Almond fans will settle in to his emotive storytelling, but a for tighter, more effective World War I selection consider Jacques Goldstyn’s The Eleventh Hour (BCCB 11/18). Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois