Alice Walker, illustrated by Stefano Vitale,
Why War Is Never a Good Idea
HarperCollins, 2007.

All ages

In Why War Is Never a Good Idea, Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker brings her famously powerful passion and imagination to a difficult project: presenting the gravity and horror of war without going beyond what a young child should be expected to understand. Walker and illustrator Stefano Vitale do a fine job of walking that fine line: Walker by personifying War and its nefarious activities and Vitale with strong images that contrast idyllic natural harmony with poisoned and destroyed environments.

The language is spare and poetic, usually two or three words to a line, six or eight lines to a page, with some pages altogether free of words. “Picture frogs/Beside a pond/Holding their annual/Pre-rainy-season/Convention,” begins the first of Walker’s refrains. “They do not see War/Huge tires/Of a/Camouflaged/Vehicle/About to/Squash/Them flat.” Vitale surrounds a huge, ominous, rusting-wheeled tire with what appears to be his beautiful pond illustration from the facing page, now crumpled by and wrapped around the tire. Later in the book, a delicate drawing of a destroyed town illustrates the lines, “War has bad manners/War eats everything/In its path/& what/It doesn’t/Eat/It/Dribbles/On:” The following pages, printed sideways, depict a deep chasm in the earth to illustrate how “War is/Munching on/A village…finding/Its/Way/Into the/Village/Well.”

The book has a creative but challenging closing: “Now, suppose You/Become War/It happens/To some of/the nicest/People/On earth:/ & one day/You have/To drink/The/Water/In this place.” Vitale shows a circle of people, seen from below, peering into a deep, dark well. It’s a good ending—confronting, yet offering a clear option for a more peaceful way. But since “war happens to some of the nicest people,” it’s also clear that not choosing war can be more difficult that we might imagine.

Perhaps it’s quibbling, with such a serious book, to mention that capitalization of the initial word in each brief line distracts from the movement of images and ideas. Otherwise, this is a troubling, demanding, stimulating book in all the best ways. Children should not be left to make sense of it alone; it’s best introduced by sensitive and trustworthy adults who can help young readers begin to consider large and complex notions of good and evil.

Charlotte Richardson
November 2008