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Zusatztext This collection! written by 12 noted young adult authors! examines all of war’s implications for young people—from those caught in the line of fire to the children of veterans of wars long past. Informationen zum Autor Jennifer Armstrong is the author of over 50 books for children from kindergarten through high school. Best known for writing historical fiction, she has also been successful in creating picture books, easy readers, chapter books, young adult novels, as well as nonfiction. Armstrong is the winner of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World . Many of her books have been designated as Notable Books by the American Library Association and the International Reading Association. Armstrong, who grew up outside of New York City, now lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. Klappentext As bullets ring and bombs are dropped! children watch—mostly from the sidelines! but occasionally in the direct line of fire. Unaware of the political issues or power struggles behind the battle! all they know are the human! emotional consequences of this thing called war. This collection examines all of war's implications for young people—from those caught in the line of fire to the children of the veterans of wars long past. Critically acclaimed author Jennifer Armstrong brings together 12 powerful voices in young people's literature to explore the realities of war from a child's perspective. The settings vary widely—the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan! an attempted coup in Venezuela! the American Civil War! crisis in the Middle East—but the effects are largely the same. In war! no life is ever left untouched. In war! lives are shattered. Yesterday, as the war finished its first day, we became refugees. The fires, air raids, bullets, and bombardment ruined many homes and burned many crop fields. They drove us away in the middle of the night like a nation of terrified deer. We all knew that someone wanted us dead yesterday. So we ran to the caves and then through the fields that would take us to the second day, and to a road through which we could cross to safety in a neighboring country. But the road was empty except for the fierce June sun that pierced my face. I asked that I sit. My father instructed that I must remain standing and ready to run. But my feet had gotten bruised from running without shoes yesterday, and I could not stand. When the sun centered in the sky and my noon shadow pooled like the blood of a butchered animal below me, I fell to the ground, asleep. Mother, who hovered over while holding my infant sister to her chest, and my two brothers frantically shook me and pinched my cheeks until I woke up again. "No one can carry you," Dad explained as he skinned off a piece of cucumber and rubbed it on my face to further awaken me. He had carried the cucumber to replace water at Mother's urging last night. "Do you really think it can replace water?" he had exclaimed in the darkness before we fled. 'il imagine so," she had replied. "Imagine" was Mother's favorite word. In Arabic, she would say Batkhayyal, which also meant "to see the shadow of a thought," as if one is separated from it by a thin cloth. Mother seemed to dwell behind this veil, gaze through it, and long for uniting with its other side. Mother could imagine solutions to many problems and would pop them out of her mouth with the ease I popped my Bazooka chewing gum. Now, standing only one step away from my mother, I could see that she had slipped into the other side and the door was shut behind her. My heart pounded at the barrier and begged that she come out and see me. But her gaze only floated afar on the horizon. When she finally spoke, the words were not directed at me. "I hear something in the distance," she said quietly, as if not to disturb the spider-thread perception...
