Remembrance Day: Why by Nikolai Popov
This week many countries will be honoring their war dead. Called Veterans Day in the U.S., November 11th is referred to as Remembrance Day in Canada and Armistice Day in the UK. Although there are many fine books for children on the subject of war, the wordless picture book Why by Nikolai Popov is a compelling allegorical meditation on the subject. It depicts an encounter between a mouse and frog that becomes suddenly fraught with tension and unexpected violence that leads to a massacre. The book is beautifully illustrated by Popov whose own memories of the war from his perspective as a young Russian boy (he was born in 1938) are recounted in the author’s note in the back.
Following the “War & Peace in children’s books” tag will lead you to some of the other excellent books we have highlighted on the PaperTigers blog. Are there any books about war that you share with your children? Do share them with us!
November 11th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Other children’s books about war: have a look at “ROSE BLANCHE “by Italian (amazing) illustrator Roberto Innocenti, about Germany in World War 2.Terribly good.
I illustrated a book called “THE CEMETERY KEEPERS OF GETTYSBURG” (By Linda Oatman High, published by Walker & Company), based on the true story of one family , trampled by the Civil War. The editor asked me not to show dead people , quite difficult since that battle was a mayhem….I tried to describe the horror without showing the dead. If there can be a ranking of wars, a civil war is the very worst of wars.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Sally, this sounds an extraordinary book, one I didn’t know.
I agree with Laura that Rose Blanche is a very moving picture-book about the Holocaust and Innocenti’s illustrations are amazing. I find it interesting that the publishers of her own book didn’t want any dead to appear in the illustrations. I blogged recently about Photographs in the Mud set in Papua New Guinea. The depiction of bloodshed is very powerful, though not gory.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Why We Remember written and illustrated by students from Graysville School (Graysville, MB, Canada) is a book that we read every November 11th. It was published by Scholastic Canada in 2004.