Multicultural literature sometimes receives criticism, with allegations that to focus on difference rather than similarity divides us even further. War literature draws similar fire, for contributing to the development of extreme patriotism and hate against citizens of another nation. I wonder if the opposite can’t occur instead, that such literature can support unity by dispelling some of the myths and misperception. After all, violence often traces back to fear, and knowledge provides an antidote to fear. If I can identify the sound in the dark, my insecurity generally dissipates. Furthermore, multicultural literature addresses issues of power and oppression, while war stories invite a critical discussion of war, an opportunity to view different perspectives on political issues, a chance to confront multiple facets contributing to the conflict so that alternatives to violence can emerge.
Authors like Anne Laurel Carter write about varied families, distinct economic circumstances, diverse ethnicities, experiences, home settings, regions, and lifestyles. In The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, readers meet Amani Raheem, a Palestinian girl who shares passions, ambitions, fears, values, and dilemmas familiar to most young adults. After developing an attachment to Amani’s family and situation, readers cheer when Seedo recognizes the world has changed and passes his shepherd’s crook, not to a son but to a granddaughter. Along with Amani, we mourn Seedo’s death, and we grow angry at the Israeli land grab, at the settler’s notion of God as a real estate agent, at the injustice endured as Palestinians lose land they have worked for generations, as sheep are shot and olive groves bulldozed to ruin.
We also recognize the degree to which ethnicity is an important part of identity. Strong and loyal ethnic identity is necessary to maintain group solidarity, to provide a sense of belonging. Ethnic identity is the primary source of identification for Amani, who feels no need to identify herself differently and believes her “blood is mixed with the soil of the land” (150). In fact, she finds it emotionally difficult to sever her primary identity as a shepherd, as Seedo’s granddaughter carrying on a tradition in a place where the hum and thrum of olive presses lulls her to sleep or the smell of Sitti’s shrak, a thin whole wheat bread baked over a domed griddle, reassures her that all is well in the world. Through her, we learn the history, culture, and contributions of Palestinian people. We hear the stories—legends about wolves and secret passages into the Firdoos; learn the names of foods—like fellafel, the deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas, or mamool, the powdered sugar-dusted date and nut cookies; and discover the traditions that define the family—eating and praying together, the wearing of kufiyyi—the traditional man’s headscarf, or playing ghummayeh, hide-and-seek.
We also learn that people can change, that discriminatory ideas like Seedo’s initially seeing Amani’s mother—an outsider, a Christian woman – as an infidel. But he realizes his son’s love and with time, wipes anger from his heart—a lesson he passes on to Amani, who finds good in a rabbi befriended by her father, Baba, and who befriends Jonathan, the Jewish son of an Israeli settler who sees defending the Holy Land with bulldozers and guns as contrary to the original Jewish vision of a safe homeland. Jonathan grasps how settlement and privilege for some is destroying the lives of others: “I can’t stay in the settlement. Every day I think how your life must have been before. I imagine you grazing your sheep like that first day I saw you. No fences. No soldiers. No highways over your land. The settlement destroyed your life” (204).
Amani learns that conflict resolution requires cooperation and collaboration. Such alliances may form from unsuspecting sources, like a rabbi from Jerusalem, Christian peacemakers from the United States, and an Israeli lawyer from Tel Aviv. Stories such as Amani’s help dispel stereotypes and enlarge the harm in prejudice; they invite a non-militant stance to conflict. After reading, we realize, war isn’t just headline news. Behind the CNN reports of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, real people are enduring terrible tragedies.
What other war books have the potential to perform such teaching, to put a human face on contentious issues, to deepen an understanding of war—its causes and its consequences?
A few days ago I finished "Maus: A Survivor’s Tale," by Art Spiegelman, a graphic novel that is foremost a biography of the author’s father Vladek, who survived as a Polish Jew in the hellscape of Auschwitz, as well as other absolutely terrifying experiences in WWII Germany and Poland. Certainly, the novel illustrates acts of extreme selfless compassion, as well as extremely depraved barbarism, among all the groups prominently represented: German, Polish and Jewish.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one of the most tyrannical figures in the novel is Vladek himself. Roughly half the novel is dedicated to Art’s experience interviewing his father for this book, and while Vladek is a heroic character surviving by his remarkable wits and perseverance against all odds during WWII, in the present day setting he is a senile old man whose “wits and perseverance” translate into churlish neurosis. He inadvertently tortures all around him: his son suffered a mental breakdown as a young man, and Vladek’s wife Anja survived Auschwitz and the war also, but only to commit suicide after their son Art is full grown. It’s implied that Vladek’s controlling and destructive tendencies had a role in the tragic circumstances that follow both his wife and son.
In this sense, "Maus" certainly puts a human (if somewhat mouse-ish) face on the character of the Jewish Auschwitz survivor, demystifying and complicating the myth of the heroic survivor. As a reader you empathize with the protagonist version of the young man Vladek, and you are (sometimes comically) horrified by the present day Vladek, who is antagonist to his son, and really all others he encounters.
Vladek’s character actually reminded me of “The Hurt Locker,” in that the movie portrayed a soldier whose skills and motivations had been shaped by a battleground, but those skills and motivations sabotaged any chance at a ‘normal’ civilian life. This seems to be also the case with Vladek as a battleground survivor. Although even that is too neat a package in which to wrap the character; Art is constantly confronted by other WWII survivors who insist that nobody else came out of Auschwitz like his father, and wits and perseverance didn’t make a survivor, pure random luck is all that made a survivor.
What really struck me as an important element of this book for a young adult audience is the larger question of what it means to be a survivor. Vladek survived the gas chambers, but his son is also a survivor of a neurotic father and a mother’s suicide. Also, the novel was written in two parts, and at the start of the second part we can see that now Art even has to survive the success of the first book! One frame has Art sitting at his drawing board, composing the second part of the novel, atop a mighty heap of dead Jewish bodies. The guilt he feels – for achieving such critical and commercial success on the backs of those murdered in the holocaust – is palpable.
And it’s real.
I think a good exercise for a young adult classroom would be for each student to explore an event that they themselves have survived. Art actually feels guilty for never himself having experienced the holocaust, and I think this sense of feeling guilty for the things we have not suffered might be a universal trait in our culture. I think anybody, but especially our youth, could do with some justification of the hardships they have encountered. I think you can do this without creating a narcissistic “woe is me” environment. So often we base success, failure, and so much more, in a comparative sense. Success is often based on how well you’ve done in comparison, to another; as it is also with failure, suffering, and survival.
I think students could benefit from a critical evaluation of their own survivor stories; what they discovered about themselves, what they would change about themselves, what they would keep about themselves, how the events helped shaped who they are, their inner dialogue, and how they see the world.
I just finished Yolen's Briar Rose, and I particularly enjoyed how the notion of storytelling becomes an act of preservation: not necessarily of history, which must be hunted for and discovered as the novel progresses, but of self. In that way, Becca's beloved Gemma (thus called due to a child's mispronunciation of "grandma") is able to use Sleeping Beauty as a springboard for a creation of a new identity, and one that she strives to pass down to her granddaughters through repeated tellings of the fairy tale.
ReplyDeleteStorytelling also behaves as a mode for pushing back the darkness, horror, actions that defy rationality; Yolen's characters are wrapped up in story and mystery, and through them we the audience are gradually led, in the novel's final third, to confront the depravity the victims of the Holocaust were forced to endure. Becca, the protagonist whose eyes and ears we the audience borrow as we follow her on her quest for clues to the true nature of her grandmother's identity, eventually travels to Poland, where Yolan poses questions for us to consider about cultural clash, mutual learning that occurs when two cultures come into contact, and the suggestion that the sins of the past (and the horrors of the Holocaust) are hidden beneath beautiful landscaping ... but are still there. And their presence can be felt.
I can remember taking a tour in high school of the Holocaust museum that was housed briefly in downtown Missoula, and how appalled I was to learn that there are people who consider the Holocaust to be a fabrication. Yolen's novel considers how easily history may be lost or transmuted, a la the story of Sleeping Beauty, forgotten or denied. She provides us with Jewish characters affected by the war, gay male characters, Gypsies. She gives us faces and names and forces us to consider numbers. And, ironically, she uses the archetypal nature of the fairy tale to show her audience (and remind us) that these things happened, that they were specific, that they were real.
It's just a story ... but it's all real at the same time.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have just finished reading “The Bielski Brothers” by Peter Duffy and I found the novel extremely captivating. A war novel is not something I would have willingly picked off the shelf to enjoy but after having read this book, I am so happy that I did. This story is about three Jewish brothers who, in the midst of the Nazis invasion and takeover of western Belarus where the brothers and their family lived, not only avoided being captured, but saved twelve hundred other Jews in the process.
ReplyDeleteThe rebellion of the three men during World War II struck me as brave and seemingly impossible. I wanted to hear more. Throughout the story there was a mixture of facts such as battle sites, dates and outcomes, which I expected. However, there was just as often touching quotes from survivors about their experience within the group and interactions with the Bielski brothers, occasional revenge stories the brothers exacted on deserving thieves and pro-Nazis informers (which had me muttering a strong-hearted “Good!” more than once), and my personal favorite, constant updates on the juicier side of gossip. Love lives were a tough secret to keep in the close group of survivors and it seemed that everyone was more than happy to divulge the information whenever they could.
I believe the book would be an inspiring YA novel for young readers to experience. Throughout the entirety of the story, I found myself rooting for the brothers and their group, holding my breathe when the group was in peril, and at times holding back tears while shaking my head as people I’d grown to care for were killed. The events and appalling cruelty that took place during World War II are shocking and disheartening. This true story of the Bielski brothers includes these disturbances but it allows for some smiles and laughs along the way and concludes with a hopeful feeling left in the reader.
Before reading this novel, I was aware of the awful stories of what happened to people in concentration and death camps. Forced manual labor, suffering from starvation, and mass killings were nothing new for me to hear about but as I read this book, I was pulled into the events like I was there. My understanding of the things that happened deepened. I was no longer vaguely acknowledging numbers, I felt myself imagining what it would have been like to be there. The vivid details provided in “The Bielski Brothers” make that easy to do. Imagining being forced by gunpoint to a large ditch that was dug early that day, told to strip, and waiting next to family and friends for the gunfire to start, knowing full well from the start of the march that you are going to your death is a difficult journey to take even in your imagination. However, it allows for a deeper understanding of what happened to people, particularly Jews, during World War II. Consequences of war are illustrated throughout the novel and not just the end results, but the causalities and suffering that happened throughout the war.
I finished Anne Frank: Diary of A Young Girl. I understand this is an older book, but i still think this is a great book that would be great for students in middle school and or High school. Anne wrote in her diary for two years, teling her experiences during the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteI believe this book would help broaden young adults into the war genre, broaden their literature choices, and help students see the world of war. It is important for students to remember how and why we have what we have today in America. Anne Frank was very young and as I read about her experiences I looked back on my own personal experiences and could not imagine going through what she did. Having students read about war through the eyes of someone their own age would be a great empact on their war novel experience.
In the classroom...
I would want to set up a journaling assignment. Possibly a few weeks or the entire month. This would allow them to become better writers and maybe even find a new hobbie.
Anne Frank is powerful and a true story.
this is katherine nelson by the way. this wad the only way i could post
ReplyDeleteI read "Flygirl" by Sherri L. Smith for our War/Holocaust genre. I almost felt guilty about reading it for the genre because so little of it actually reflects war.
ReplyDeleteIt's a novel set before and during World War II in America. Ida Mae Jones is a young African-American woman in a time when all those descriptors were strikes against you. Her father had taught her to fly before he died, and when her brother goes off to fight this new war, she desperately wants to help in some way. Her younger brother sees a newspaper article about a group called the WASP--a group made specifically for women pilots. It is not part of the military, precisely, but it is a way for Ida to feel useful while her brother is overseas. She's light enough to pass as white, so when she goes to the recruitment office and sees another African-American woman denied from the program, she simply neglects to mention that she is not as white as she looks. She must maintain this lie throughout her experiences training as a WASP and working missions.
Although "Flygirl" is set during a war, it is more a story about deciding who you are, and how to portray that to others. Ida has to spend the novel wondering whether everyone she is meeting would still like her if they knew she was African-American. This book might not teach people about war, but it does teach acceptance. It puts a face to the idea of racism, it works to counter the idea that some people think differently or less because of the way they look. It also strongly emphasized the fight for women's rights. Men still viewed women as incapable fighters, but they were willing to allow women to test new and possibly unstable equipment. Women in the WASP program were also considered lesser (in more than one part, it is alluded to that WASP women were considered equal to prostitutes).
I guess in many ways this is a book about a war, just not one fought between two countries. "Flygirl" is more about the war fought between races and sexes. The war to be equal no matter what physical body people wear. Either way, emotions ran high and were very realistically portrayed.
Hayley Botnen
I just finished Night by Elie Wiesel in which he chronicles his WWII experience going from one concentration camp to another. I found his story to be inspirational and heart-wrenching, as well as enlightening. If a young adult were to read this book I think the "wow moment" would be when he reveals his age. They would be able to see how this boy was able to overcome something so intense and tragic and still manage to survive it. The book also doesn't try to sugar-coat his feelings or the inner thoughts that may not have been viewed as acceptable. His account is very honest, making it even more relatable.
ReplyDeleteYoung adults need to know that they are not the only ones feeling strong emotions that aren't viewed as positive (i.e. rage, sadness, selfishness, etc). Everyone has an evil thought at some point, and that doesn't make them an evil person--it makes them human. Wiesel clearly shows that, but it also shows how he handled those thoughts by not necessarily acting on them.
In regards to books of this type creating hatred or violence, I think if anything it would show a student the importance of forgiveness. Wiesel emphasizes at the end of the book that he did not once want revenge. That seems shocking! His family was destroyed as well as his faith and childhood, yet he doesn't wish the same on the group that did this to him. This emphasis and point would show students that the reaction to being hurt doesn't always need to be to hurt back, which is an important life lesson.
Giving young people knowledge of our world and its history, as well as the tough issues that we don't like to remember is essential. If a person is given wisdom from past mistakes and tragedies, they may just be less likely to repeat that hardship.
Correction--I finished the book last week :)
ReplyDeleteThe Diary of Anne Frank is a fabulous piece of young adult literature. Written in an interesting style, the personal diary entries, and focusing on a serious and frightening subject, Jews during the holocaust. I experienced a full range of emotions while reading this book from joy when she is being walked home by David to sadness when she describes how the Jews are being treated and what they are not allowed to do.
ReplyDeleteThis book is a perfect fit for young adults, it has the correct amount of intensity and does not overwhelm them. It also has a relatable protagonist and a surprisingly hopeful ending. It is important for young adults to be passionate about what they are reading and learn about themselves along with what the book is trying to teach them. I would not hesitate to teach this to young adults in my classroom.
The war/Holocaust book that I chose to read was Night by Elie Wiesel. This was largely due to the fact that I heard the title brought up quite often during our first classroom discussion on our past experiences with the genre. Realizing that my familiarity with that specific field was relatively limited, I felt it was a good decision to read one of the most popular and memorable titles. I am pleased to say I agree heartily with everyone’s raving reviews.
ReplyDeleteReading Night has not only reminded me of the tragedy of the Holocaust, but has also opened my eyes to the degradation of the human spirit. Eliezer, the narrator, is constantly surrounded by misfortune not only in his own experiences but in the actions he witnesses and the knowledge of others suffering around him. As Eliezer observes a woman lose her sanity at the loss of her family, children and adults being burned alive, fellow Jews being tagged like cattle while being treated worse, and a son murdering his father for a few crumbs of bread, he is unable to deny his own fears that he might inevitably abandon his own father as his instinct leaning towards self preservation dictates.
The causes and consequences of war are bled into every page of Elie Wiesel’s young adult book, and I feel that this book could easily be used as a tool to inform students about the Holocaust. Since this story is told from a young adult’s perspective, the chance that young adult students would feel closeness to the event is highly increased. The fact that such an event could happen to any person is beyond imagination, and we can only expect so much understanding from students who have experienced so little. The fact that evil things can occur does not expel the fact that teachers must do their best to impart such a vital event in history into the minds of our students who deserve the truth of humanity’s history.
-Christina Hicks
"Zazoo" by Richard Mosher chronicles an adopted Vietnamese girl's slow discovery of how the events of WWII impacted Grand-Pierre (her adopted grandfather) and the French village in which she lives. I definitely think there's a tendency to glorify war, particularly the 'winners', but "Zazoo" does an excellent job of exploring the consequences and morality of both sides of World War II. Her Grand-Pierre fought for the Allies, but as the story progresses it becomes apparent that while he fought for what we consider the 'right' side and worked to save a Jewish boy from the Nazis, he does not consider himself a hero. This is not out of modesty but instead a realistic realization that his 'heroics' killed human beings, even if they were Germans, and he has had to live with the lingering guilt of those choices throughout his life, regardless of how atrocious the Nazis were or how honorable his cause was/is considered.
ReplyDeleteI think it becomes increasingly important not to simply place a blanket label such as 'good' or 'evil' upon war as a whole or even the individual sides of any armed conflict, but to analyze the full complexity and long range consequences of war. YA Literature that deals with both sides of this issue and operates within the framework of grey that is more akin to the actuality of war would, I think, encourage much more dialogue about the issue as a whole, rather than simply venerating how many were liberated from concentration camps by Allied forces or adopting a purely pacifistic approach.
Alex McLean
RANDOM THOUGHTS
ReplyDeleteI dig the variety of what’s been said here. Lots of gut wrenching reactions to war/holocaust stories.
War/holocaust seems an ideal genre to engage empathetic readers, or readers looking beyond themselves. Krista and Katherine both had insights related to empathetic readings:
“I was pulled into the events like I was there. My understanding of the things that happened deepened. I was no longer vaguely acknowledging numbers, I felt myself imagining what it would have been like to be there. The vivid details provided in “The Bielski Brothers” make that easy to do.” krista_gooty05
“Anne Frank was very young and as I read about her experiences I looked back on my own personal experiences and could not imagine going through what she did.” BeFree
I think it’s important to encourage young adult readers to imagine “what it would have been like to be there” because some are really going to respond – really ‘get it’ – and have strong emotional reactions to war/holocaust circumstances that are entirely foreign to them. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy high school students: most are developmentally ready to empathize outside of their own experience. Although not everybody will be ready at the same time. You can’t expect every student to be ready to empathize, and on the flip side you have to be ready for students who have developed sincere empathy long before many of their peers really have.
MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS
I loved the notion in Laramie’s reading about storytelling as an act of self preservation. There’s so many directions you can take that idea, such as the purpose of storytelling, and using writing to seek immortality (see Wordsworth, Poe, Joyce, et al.)
For me (and something provocative or useful to a young adult class), I think this notion ties neatly into journaling and free writing. Storytelling is preservation in a real sense: we learned in HHP 233 (Health Issues for Adolescents) that it’s researched and proven that simply keeping a journal is instrumental for self esteem and mental health. In C&I classes (such as Educational Psych and Classroom Management) we learned that cognitive behavior modification can be reached by simply writing things down, by crystallizing effervescent thoughts into something external and observable.
Young adults spend a LOT of time in their own head, as they should! Teaching them the value of getting it out onto a page can be cathartic and illuminating.
LAST RANDOM THOUGHT
I’m sorry I go on and on and on. Someone in class last Monday mentioned that all the responses to the blog were really long, and I cringed because I’m incredibly guilty of this. I take what could be said in a nutshell and I wrap a coconut around it.
This is what I love to do, I’m so excited to teach, and I can be indulgent when someone offers me an avenue for expressing (vomiting?) my thoughts on the topic.
However, the point made in class is taken, and I realize that among us adults I can be afforded a bit of indulgence (if you don’t want to read it, you just won’t!), but when I’m teaching my own class I need to keep brevity in mind lest I scare and shut down my students through sheer walls of text.
Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about here, but don't all novels - by necessity of having characters, who should be, by necessity, people we care about, or at least invest in - put a face on senselessness? Another way of saying this is, doesn't any war novel put a face on war? That is the power of novels. That is why we love or hate them - because they make real that which we might not want to deal with, but perhaps that which we should. We go into the apocalypse with a novel, we go into war with a novel, we go to deep, dark places that many of us would be afraid to go to on our own, without that barrier of reality blurred.
ReplyDelete@Justin Olson:
ReplyDeleteReally well put. Your comment that novels "make real that which we might not want to deal with" rings of some of our class reading (I think it was Blasingame?) that talks about how students can live through hardships vicariously through reading about them, and be better equipped to deal with these situations should they actually encounter them.
I think it's key for a teacher to celebrate and encourage students to (as you put it) "care about, or at least invest in" the characters in class readings. I liked Krista's comment that she was "no longer vaguely acknowledging numbers", because most of us have probably had had those killjoy teachers that turn a great novel into a repository of vague numbers, or vague disconnected facts, or vague whatever-the-teacher-wants-you-to-regurgitate-for-the-exam.
For my war/holocaust novel, I read Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick. This novel had a fast paced plot and was an easy read about the Iraq War. This novel was appealing because it dealt with contemporary issues and conflicts that are still occurring. It was somewhat refreshing to read about the Iraq war opposed to World War II(not that I have anything against WWII novels). Often when reading historical novels, especially ones that deal with war, it is hard for me to completely empathize with the characters. There is always some "historical" disconnect in my mind, and it doesn't exactly hit me that the events I'm reading about are actually based on real events. Reading a novel about the Iraq War made me realize that there is still a disconnect even when I am reading about a war situation that is even occurring right now as I write this. The thing about difficult topics like war is that I personally try not to think about it, and I think that may be the reason for that disconnect. We get so caught up in our daily lives we forget what kind of horrors war entails or has entailed. This is why it is important to read novels that deal with topics like war because it reminds us that war is a reality and not just some historical figment of our imaginations. I believe this same idea could transfer over into the classroom. It is important for young adults to realize that they have it pretty easy compared to children that survived the holocaust or are living in Iraq at the moment. In Purple Heart, the main character meets this little boy who befriends him and his unit. However, the boy is so desperate for food and money he gives into the enemy sympathizers and becomes a spy for the enemy. The idea that innocent children are even becoming involved in the war never occurred to me. This was one of the saddest aspects of the novel. I think being faced with these atrocities makes the reader/student able to realize that here in America we are very lucky and we should never take any of a our freedoms or the luxury/opportunity of having fairly carefree lives for granted.
ReplyDeleteI read “Number the Stars” by Louis Lowry last week. As I was reading it, many of my friends commented on how much they enjoyed reading it as a middle schooler, but I was never provided the opportunity. I read the “Diary of Anne Frank” in eighth grade, and “Night” in high school, but am disappointed this book was withheld from my literature past. Annemarie seems younger than middle school age, but I think it would be an appropriate choice for sixth or seventh graders to read. “Number the Stars” portrays many different aspects of the victims of war, and how each group deals with them. By working together the Jewish families were beating the Nazi’s, and without one another, no one would have survived.
ReplyDeleteThe reality this book portrayed reflected situations many young adults faced, but to a much larger extreme. Every child plays in the street, but not every child runs into a Nazi soldier questioning every move that they were to make. Writing this novel through the eyes of Annemarie, the reader was able to step in to her shoes and deal with the problems she faced, as she faced them. Literature for young adults needs to connect to their lives, which this book did gracefully.
What I enjoyed most about this book, was the end. After Lowry was finished with his story, he gave an epilogue of facts and descriptions about certain scenes in the book. For example, Annemarie is in charge of delivering a handkerchief laced with a drug that killed a dog’s sense of smell, in order to hide Jewish families on boats to Sweden. In the epilogue Lowry describes the making of the handkerchief and some background information to follow. By providing the reader with this lens of literature, it opens the many possibilities of extended research papers. As a future teacher I would recommend this book, and would love to be able to do a Holocaust unit, paired with the reading of this book.
"Escape from Warsaw" definitely supports the idea that war stories can be a positive experience rather than breeding hatred for another group of people. The stories follows three (at times four) chidren as they journey to find their parents. Along the way they are helped by enemy soldiers, farmers, and other individuals from whom they would not have expected kindness during that time. The story demonstrates that what unifies people is a common goodness not a common nationality. The children do not learn a sense of national pride and hatred for the Nazis but an appreciate for humanity as the common thread which binds people together.
ReplyDelete-Ellen Kolf
Though there are certainly war novels that do result in mixed feelings for another group of people (People of German or Japanese decent with WWII books, Vietnamese in the Vietnam War, and even fellow American's in Civil War books). However, it is rarely an intended consequence of the author to provide this hatred of other cultures. Most texts, like Walter Dean Myers' Fallen Angel, focuses not on the cultural differences of American soldiers and Vietcong rebels, but on the confusion and disillusionment that war provides.
ReplyDeleteA good war text does not usually vilify one group or the other, but instead portrays both sides as human beings. Good verses evil struggles are reserved for fantasy novels where there is a clear divide between one group and another. In the real world, and in the case of literature written about war, this division, though apparent, is often blurred and it is difficult to truly foster hatred for another group. Though the Nazi regime was terrible and horrific the majority of the German army was not populated by xenophobic murders, Vietnamese rebels were fighting for the freedom of their country, and Confederate soldiers, though entirely misguided, were fighting for their way of life. A good war novel challenges an individual's previous conceptions of history and brings its readers into a grey area of understanding.
Though I'm a little late to reply, I read ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut. I really enjoyed the book as Vonnegut’s dark humor is really powerful and captivating. If you’re not really a fan of war books like me, you might want to take a look at this one. Vonnegut not only discusses the infamous Dresden bombing and issues of war, but overpopulation, government, and consumerism. He adds a touch of science fiction to novel by having Bill Pilgrim, the main character, travel through time, relive past experiences, and be abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians.
ReplyDeleteThe book if fairly controversial as it has a liberal amount explicit language, sexual scenes and references, and references to homosexuality. But I believe those aspects of the book are minimal in comparison to what is enjoyable about the book and what can be learned from it. Foremost, the book enlightens readers about the bombing of Dresden, Germany, through the semi-autobiographical experiences of Billy Pilgrim. We first read about Billy out on the front lines of war, ready to give up. Two fellow soldiers refuse to let him do so, and drag him along with them. They quickly become captured by Germans, and the complex weaving of shifts between time and memory begins. A major theme of the book is the idea of fate, and that we know things are going to happen, yet there is nothing that can be done to change the outcome. For example, the Tralfamadorians know that the world is going to end because they accidently blow it up. Yet they cannot change this outcome in the future. They believe that you don’t technically die, and that every moment lives on even though you can’t see it. Even though someone’s body is gone now and in the future, they still are alive in the past.
However, don’t let the aliens throw you off. They’re actually a nice break from the dark humor/tragedy happening everywhere else in the book. It really is enticing though. Vonnegut tells us that Dresden was a safe haven for refugees from all over the country and from every side of the war. Dresden had no military bases; therefore it was no threat to the war and shouldn’t have been targeted for an attack. However, within the last three days of WWII, Dresden was bombed. The blame is upon America and England, and England and America point fingers back at each other, making the reasons for the attack unknown. It’s said that nearly 120,000 people were killed, however, many American historical authors claim the number to be well below that, around 40,000. This book is a great opportunity to get students and readers to delve into the issues with historical texts and hidden history.
Upon doing some Googling, I found out that a lot of people have read or taught the book in high school. If you read it, you clearly will see it’s not exactly for the younger audiences, but at the same time, it is a great example of writing style and use of humor, satire, irony, and blatant truths. So hopefully this wasn’t too long – it’s hard to get in all the good points of a book in a few sentences. But nevertheless, you should check this book out if you’re looking for a bit of humor, perspective, and witty truth.
For my war/holocaust book I read "Night" by Elie Wiesel. I found it to be heartbreaking. It is about a Jewish family taken to Auschwitz. The story follows the boy and his father as they try to survive. The images were very powerful and at times difficult to read. I thought Wiesel did an excellent job of conveying emotion through the text and really made me feel the agony the characters went through. What was most interesting to me and depressing was the extermination of the Jewish spirit. The characters in the story began as such family oriented and loving people, but as brutalities were committed against them they underwent terrible change to survive. Along each step of their journy the reader is able to see what the Nazis physically took from the Jews and how it ended up taking more from them emotionally and spiritually. The difficulties surrounding religion in that context is elaborated on and is depressing, but also inspiring. The loss of familial ties due to the terrors exerted was the more difficult thing to read. Sons turning against fathers for a crumb and things like that made me consider the relationships I have with my family members and brought on depressing thoughs about how it must have been to go through something so terrible.
ReplyDeleteI belive this would be an emotionally difficult book for high schoolers to read, but it is an emotionally difficult subject with no easy way to learn about. The book is not complex in its writing and so I believe that it would be a good representative of the holocaust period. the familial bonds are relatable to most students and would allow students to really connect with the text and understand those travisties.
My choice War/Holocaust book was "Code Talker" by Joseph Bruchac. The novel follows Ned Begay, a Navajo indian, that has been sent to boarding school to learn to be more "American." At 16, Ned enlists in the Marines after being recruited. Shortly after boot camp, Ned and several other Navajo recruits receive more training in code talking. The code utilizes their native Navajo tongue and is a new technology that troops begin using during WWII.
ReplyDeleteThe novel is written from Ned's stream of consciousness. He reflects on his experiences at the boarding school, boot camp, and his deployment during WWII. The novel is easy to follow and his experiences are unique and interesting.
I believe the novel is teachable in the schools because it presents the American side of the story from a Native American point of view. Not too many books present that side of the story.
By the way, I know a posted a long time ago, but I didn't post what I read, which was "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. What a great book! And I don't really care for futuristic/technology-type stories. The story also rings with a lot of sci-fi - which is not another one of my typical draws, but I did really enjoy this story. I talked about it in class, but that was a while ago, so in short, it's a throw-back to Orwell's "1984" (hence, Little Brother). And posits the questions, what happens when security goes too far? Or how does the government respond to terrorist attacks? And when does the line blur from providing security to losing privacy (think recent TSA policies and the new full-body scans). As someone said, "At some point you have to ask if my liberty is worth more than my liberty. Otherwise, what's the point?" I think that's a great quote and a great way to approach this teen novel.
ReplyDeleteI read "The Book Theif" by Markus Zusak for our War/Holocaust genre. It is the story of Liesel Meminger, and her struggle to survive the Holocaust in Germany. In the begining Liesel's mother is taking Liesel and her six year old brother Werner to their new foster family. Werner dies on the train and so Liesel is left to face her new home alone. Her foster mother, Rosa Huberman is obnoxious, but Liesel takes an almost imediate liking to her new foster father, Hans Huberman. It is he who teaches Lisel how to read. She steals books and reads them with Hans's help and eventually, Ilsa Hermann, the mayor's wife, gives Liesel a blank book, in which Liesel writes the story of her life which she titles "The Book Theif". She is writing in her blank book when her street is bombed and everyone she loves is killed as a result. She survives this tragedy but in her greif drops her book. Death picks it up (Death actually narrates the story-pretty cool right?!) and at the end of the story Death returns "The Book Theif" to Liesel as he comes to take her soul.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that struck me while I was reading this, was how much many people take reading for granted. I know I've been guilty of dreading reading certain books for classes, or books that I felt pressured into reading and wouldn't have chosen them if left to my own devices. In "The Book Theif", Liesel takes whatever books she can get her hands on. Each one is a treasure.We are so lucky to live in a society that, for the most part, looks down on book burnings and celebrates freedom of speech and the right to read and write what we please.
Reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry was a great way for me to start this class. It provided a fresh take on World War II and the Holocaust, as it took place in Denmark rather than the USA or Germany. Tying into the original blog prompt, I would certainly advocate for teaching this novel in a middle school classroom, as it does have the ability to “put a human face on contentious issues.” Readers can easily identify with the central character, Annemarie, as she grapples with who she is and who she will become in the context of the war surrounding her. In the end, she remains true to her beliefs and her moral resolve triumphs over her fears. The book teaches students that they can be brave in the face of adversity, that they can stand up for their beliefs, and that they have the power to change the world around them. A worthwhile and enlightening novel overall.
ReplyDeleteI read The Shepherd's Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter. This is a book that shed's light on the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict. Armani, the young protagonist, inherits her grandfather's position as the sole shepherd for the her families diminishing flock. Her connection to the land that has belonged to her family for generations and their way of life is threatened by Israeli encroachment.
ReplyDeleteThis book speaks to the importance of place, history, family roots and how all of these things shape our identities, our goals and our life.
Deemed by some as an anti-Israeli book, I thought it offered a different point of view of the torn region. It was very enlightening to be reminded that situations are never as simple as they first appear. The Shepherd's Granddaughter also offered a seed of hope for the region planted in the youth of Israeli and Palestinian Children.