Books at Bedtime: Peace
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007Yesterday was Peace Day – thousands of people around the world stopped to stand together for a world without conflict, for a world united:
PEACE is more than the absence of war.
It is about transforming our societies and
uniting our global community
to work together for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world for ALL. (Peace Day)
There is an ever-increasing number of children’s books being written by people who have experienced conflict first hand and whose stories give rise to discussion that may not be able to answer the question, “Why?” but at least allows history to become known and hopefully learnt from.
For younger children, such books as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino; Peacebound Trains by Haemi Balgassi; and The Orphans of Normandy by Nancy Amis all 
focus on children who are the innocent victims of conflict. We came across The Orphans of Normandy last summer. I was looking for something to read with my boys on holiday, when we were visiting some of the Normandy World War II sites. It is an extraordinary book: a diary written by the head of an orphanage in Caen and illustrated by the girls themselves as they made a journey of 150 miles to flee the coast. Some of the images are very sobering, being an accurate depiction of war by such young witnesses. It worked well as an introduction to the effects of conflict, without being unnecessarily traumatic.
The story of Sadako Sasaki, (more…)
