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Children playing war…

Yesterday morning, Little Brother (7 and 3/4) exercised a relatively new freedom and went to the shops without adult supervision to buy his brother’s Christmas present. Older Brother (10) went along too, to “help” – so no surprises then! Even when Little Brother told me with a sheepish grin that I wouldn’t like what he’d bought, the alarm bells didn’t really ring – so it was only last night, when unpacking at my parents’ house, that I discovered The Present: a “Western Rider cowboy gun” with firing sound. The conversation that ensued was difficult for both of us – I hated to undermine his independance and he was so excited about giving Older Brother something he wanted. I have convinced him that we will find something else in town this morning that will be more than equally appreciated. We still need to talk things through with Older Brother, however…

I have just re-read author Kathy Beckwith’s recent Personal View for PaperTigers: “Helping Kids See that War is Not a Game”; and I’ve followed her link to her page on the Tilbury website, with further ideas and resources for helping our children make their own decision about playing war. I’m more determined than ever to get hold of her picture-book Playing War, which hasn’t been published (yet?) in the UK – I wish I had it by me now!

In the meantime, it would be great to hear what your views are on this, and about any other books you have found invaluable in helping kids realise that war is indeed not a game.


Posted by: Marjorie | This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 1:46 am and is filed under PaperTigers Themes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: , , , ,

One Response to “Children playing war…”

  1. Sarah McGinnis Says:
    January 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    Hello Marjorie -

    Thanks so much for your wonderful post! We’re so glad to hear that you enjoyed reading the article by Kathy Beckwith, and that the additional resources on our website have been helpful. To answer your question, though we are a very small company, it is possible to find our books outside the US. Letterbox Library (a wonderful catalog in the UK) carries several of our titles, including Playing War (www.letterboxlibrary.com). Our books are also available from all the major international wholesalers (Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc.), so your local bookseller may be able to place a special order for you. And of course, there’s Amazon and other online retail sites as well. If you have any questions or need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

    Thanks again!
    Sarah
    Tilbury House, Publishers

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