War: Stories of Conflict

This is a collection of stories about war from a line-up of great children’s authors. They cover many wars in their many different forms – Crusades, WW2, Gulf war, Palestine, Suez crisis. Partly because of the age of the contributors a lot of the stories cover the Second World War, often from a civilian’s point of view during or after the war but this does not make the collection feel unbalanced. Refreshingly, many of the stories are from an adult’s perspective (Robert Westall’s memories of Egypt in the Suez crisis, Geraldine McCaughrean’s knight in the crusades, Eleanor Updale’s account of a soldier catching dysentery in the trenches, even Celia Rees’ present-day teenagers out drinking to the backdrop of the current Iraq war). All of them treat the audience with respect, engaging in the complications of politics behind conflict and the agonies over how to engage and if anyone is right or wrong. Each author gives a little introduction to their story which often makes it all the more personal and real, explaining their inspiration or own experience. Morpurgo’s story comes first but it is a shame he does not also offer an introduction to the whole collection, explaining about the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2 and what moved him to commission these stories while he was Children’s Laureate.