This month marks 70 years since the outbreak of the Second World War. The First World War had been described as the war to end all wars – yet just over thirty years later, Hitler’s invasion of Poland triggered a new conflict that would go on to engulf the whole world. Older Brother came home from his first day back at school yesterday and announced that their topic for this term is to be the Second World War. I am relieved that the teaching of history has moved on since I was at school, when all we seemed to do was draw diagrams of battle lines and rote learn significant dates. Now, I am sure, he will learn about these events but also about the cost to human life – and, I hope, he will emerge with an inkling of the horrors of war.

A superb picture book which both provides historical context and reminds us of the human tragedy which accompanies the machinations of war is Photographs in the Mud by Dianne Wolfer and illustrated by Brian Harrison-Lever (Fremantle Press, 2005). We follow the stories of two soldiers, one Australian, the other Japanese, as they set off for the front in Papua New Guinea. Jack leaves behind a pregnant wife; and Hoshi, his wife and small daughter. Each carries photographs to remind them of home – and the passing of time is emphasised through the illustrations as these photographs change.
There are many casualties on both sides before Jack and Hoshi encounter one another. Both fatally wounded, they turn to the comfort of the photographs that are their only connection with home – and then share them with each other. When they are found the next day, a soldier retrieves the photographs from the mud and tries to separate them but they are stuck together. (more…)

Michael Morpurgo is one of the greats in contemporary British children’s literature – he is a master craftsman of storytelling who weaves fiction into such convincing historical contexts that you have to pinch yourself to remember the characters came out of his imagination

Two of his recent stories for older children have a wartime setting: but both stories also have roots in the present and a new generation, which bring a perspective of hope and renewal to counterbalance the feelings of despair engendered by these examples of the futility and madness of war. The Best Christmas Present in the World (Egmont, 2004) centres around a letter from Jim Macpherson, an English officer in the First World War, which relates the extraordinary events of the momentary truce and famous football game between the British and the Germans on Christmas Day, 1914. Many years later, at Christmas time, the letter is found in an old, second-hand desk by the narrator. It is marked as “Jim’s last letter, received 25th January 1915. To be buried with me when the time comes.” And so our narrator sets out to find “Dearest Connie” – and gives her the best Christmas present in the world…

Meanwhile, The Mozart Question (Walker Books, 2008) is the story of a world-famous violinist, Paolo Levi, whose parents’ lives were saved in the Second World War through playing the violin in an orchestra at a Nazi concentration camp. Lesley, the story’s narrator, is a young journalist who is sent to Venice to interview Paolo. She pointedly does not ask him the forbidden Mozart question – but the time is right for him to talk about it. He tells her (more…)

For me, The Clay Marble has always seemed a book for all ages, and an important introduction to modern Cambodian history, to Cambodian culture, and to the nightmare years of the Khmer Rouge ascendancy. As Minfong Ho explains in her introduction, she worked with the people she depicts in this novel, she had grown up in Southeast Asia, and she writes about Dara, Jantu, and their families with first-hand knowledge and with love.

The more I read this book, the more struck I am with the way that traditional Cambodian values are described, as well as the destruction to those values that was attempted by the Khmer Rouge. The importance of family, of community, of sharing, of rice planting and harvests are all made stunningly clear in this deceptively simple and powerful story.

Although I’ve read this book often, I’ve never approached it with Marjorie’s fearlessness. She read it aloud over the past month to her two sons, as she explains here.

” Well, we finished reading The Clay Marble about 10 days ago. At the time we were all shocked and upset by the ending and I thought I would leave it a few days before asking the boys what they wanted to say about it. It does mean that their immediate reactions are lost but both of them highlighted Friendship as something that stood out for them. The setting in terms of the war has had more of an impact on Older Brother. Little Brother was much more caught up in the narrative in terms of what was happening to Dara and the other characters. Anyway, here, verbatim, is what they said about it:

Older Brother (nearly 10): “I thought the Clay Marble was very interesting because it was based on things that really happened; and quite horrible at the same time because some people had lost their legs and got infections – things like that. When Jantu died I felt very sad, especially because I thought it was disgusting that she was shot by one of the soldiers that was supposed to be protecting her. She’d been a very good friend in the story.

When Sarun was coming to the Border and for quite a while at the Border, he was always talking about planting crops and building a home for the family but then after a few weeks he was going to join the army at their camp. Then he didn’t want to go home; he didn’t want to plant crops – he wanted to stay there and be a soldier. He wanted to shoot. He thought it made him be a man. He felt like a man, not just a young lad. Why does a rifle, some bullets, some clothing, some fighting – what’s it got to do with being a man? You might die.

Everyone was scared and had to keep moving around. I felt scared for the children who lost their parents.

I thought it was quite funny that Dara believed that the clay marble was really magic, but the extraordinary thing is that when she closed her hand around it, it gave her courage.”

Little Brother (7 and a 1/2): “The Clay Marble makes me think about friendship. Some of the grown-ups were very mean because they were bombing the Border and the refugees and not just the enemy’s soldiers. The fighting made Sarun stop thinking about growing his crops and they had to have more bombings.

It made me very sad when Jantu died. She was gifted and she helped Dara believe in herself. Dara was very brave.”

I think that although Little Brother especially was quite young to be taking in all of the inferences of the story, I don’t think they were too young and they were both completely caught up in it. They were horrified to hear about how close to reality it was. The small map at the beginning was brilliant and we referred back to it many times. We read the introduction afterwards and again, they were struck that there really had been a clay marble.

Yes, I found it emotionally draining. Fortunately I had read ahead so was not having to deal with my own reactions at the same time as the boys’! We read the last few chapters in one sitting the morning after we’d read about Dara finding Jantu and the Baby in the hospital. The boys were both stunned when Jantu was shot. They were indignant and upset, and furious with the way Sarun behaved afterwards – as was I! I think the ending was managed beautifully because, after all, this is a story written with a young audience in mind. Sarun did not lose face but was able to take up his role as head of the family and the story ends with a message of hope – emphasised by the epilogue of Dara “now”, a few years later and a mother herself. A novel for an adult audience wouldn’t get away with being so tidy at the end – but Minfong Ho delivers a riveting story and instills in her young audience the idea of the futility and randomness of war at a level they can absorb, without ever having to state it explicitely: and that is why I think it’s a fine book.”

If you haven’t explored The Clay Marble, please do pick it up–and then share it with others. It, like the best of novels, illuminates the present while explaining the past–and could possibly change the future.