A young Korean American girl listens as her grandmother recalls her family’s harrowing flight from Seoul as the Korean War erupts around them. Then, when their generation becomes the policy makers, perhaps they will work, as the Greeks said, to “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”īalgassi, Haemi. Having students confront this fact, seen through the eyes of other children, may increase their sensitivity and awareness. In Zlata’s Diary, below, Zlata Filopovic writes that “a child should not be seeing, should not be living with this kind of horror.” But across the globe, every day, children are subjected to the horror of war. It is important for teachers to move beyond a sanitized version of war in which the sacrifice and loss are glossed over and students are given an unrealistic portrait of nations, or even a world, in conflict. Too often our textbooks present those caught up in war as heroes, villains, or mere statistics. When incorporated into a curriculum, the books allow students to see the human face of war. If we define citizenship as active participation in our community and our times, then the children in these books provide powerful models of this quality. These books also portray children (and adults) who feel empowered or who empower themselves through their actions, people who are active participants in-not passive victims of-the tide of history.

They do not present war in a glorified manner-the tragedy, the pain, and the loss are on full display. We have chosen stories of war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries-stories that span the continents, from Africa to Asia, Europe, North America, and South America-for several reasons. The books in the bibliography below include fiction and nonfiction about children caught in the maelstrom of war. What is it like for children when bombs explode in their neighborhoods, shooting occurs in the streets outside their doors, and their very lives are threatened? What is it like when dreams of childhood and adolescence-dreams of glory on the baseball diamond or the s occer field, young love, and a boundless future-give way to the painful realities of a world bent on destruction and geared toward domination by arms? How must children feel when the adults sworn to protect them become swept up by the violence around them? Children Caught in War Children Caught in War by Pat Austin and James A.

Kindertransport by olga levy drucker