Posts Tagged ‘war story’

A Window into War

Our students presented an amazing program for Veteran’s Day yesterday.  The choir, band and orchestra performed musical tributes to our country and those who have served.  The color guard from the high school presented the flag and a rifle inspection.  A student wrote a moving essay on the cost of freedom that was read to all.  Our local mayor, himself a veteran, spoke to our students.  He even opened to floor for questions at the end (a brave thing to do with a gymnasium full of seventh and eighth graders).  I was impressed with the questions posed by our students as they showed a genuine interest in his military experiences.

Then I took my classes to the library for the rest of the day where we watched previews of books that might show up at the book fair.  As I sat surrounded by books, I thought about all the books that had taught me what war is like.  The best stories show the brutality of war while honoring those that fight to defend our country and freedoms.  The very best ones reveal the complexity of thoughts and feelings involved.  Here are my top war stories for middle school.

fighting groundThe Fighting Ground by Avi – Jonathan is eager to fight in the American Revolution, but he learns more than he expects when he joins in a battle and is captured by Hessian soldiers.

 

 

 

woodsrunnerWoods Runner by Gary Paulsen – Samuel normally uses his woods skill to track and hunt food for his family on the frontier, but when he discovers his village burned and his parents taken prisoner, he tracks the soldiers who took his parents to try to rescue them.

 

 

how i found the strongHow I Found the Strong by Margaret McMullan – The Civil War has taken much from Frank Russell–his father, brother, his childhood.  As the war drags on, he must dig deep to make decisions about the man he chooses to be.

 

 

soldiers heartSoldier’s Heart by Gary Paulsen – Charley Goddard is changed forever by his experiences in the Civil War in this study of the trauma of war.

 

 

 

boy at warA Boy at War by Harry Mazer – Adam is the new kid once again, this time in Honolulu.  He is fishing in Pearl Harbor with friends when the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.  His story continues in A Boy No More and Heroes Don’t Run.

 

 

code talkerCode Talker by Joseph Bruchac – Ned Begay survives the white boarding school until he signs up for a top secret program with the US Army.  There he and other Navajo are trained to create and use a secret code based on their native language.  Their code was never broken, and the Navajo soldiers never betrayed their secrets even in the fiercest battles.

 

crackerCracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata – Cracker is a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs and booby traps in the jungles of Vietnam.  Along with his handler, Rick, he saves many lives, but can he save his own?

 

fallen angelsFallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers – Not all middle school students are ready for this eye-opening account of the Vietnam War through the eyes of a soldier, Perry,  but those that are find it hard to put down.  Myers also wrote a companion, Sunrise over Fallujah, that follows  Perry’s nephew in Iraq.

 

purple heartPurple Heart  by Patricia McCormick – Private Matt Duffy is awarded a Purple Heart, but he cannot remember what happened for him to earn it.  As he works to remember the incident and to heal from his wounds, he must confront the truth even when some wish to hide it.

 

ghotst of warGhosts of War by Ryan Smithson – Ryan Smithson joined the Army as soon as he could after 9-11.  This is the true story of his experiences in Iraq.

 

 

 

What are your favorite war stories?

imageI’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick

I am so excited that Patricia McCormick is going to speak via Skype with my seventh period class.  Over half of them have read and loved Cut.  I loved it, too, when I first read it.  Since several of my students have been reading other McCormick books after finishing Cut, I wanted to get in on it, too.

First up is Purple Heart (Balzer + Bray/Harper Collins 2009).  Private Matt Duffy wakes up in a hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad.  He is recovering from TBI (traumatic brain injury) after a too-close encounter with an RPG.  He can’t remember exactly what happened in the alley, but the bits and pieces of memory that surface in his mind hint that something bad happened.  Even though he is questioned about the incident, which left a civilian dead, no one seems too intent on pressing for answers.  He works hard to regain his strength and his memory so that he can rejoin his unit, but once he is released from the hospital, he’s not sure if he’s really ready.  How can he move past what happened in that alley if he can’t even remember what happened?

What I loved about Purple Heart is how McCormick is able to get inside Matt’s head.  As I read, I felt both his strength and vulnerability.  He pushes himself to get stronger so he can get back to being a soldier with his unit.  He wants to be a soldier they can count on.  He wants to know the truth even if the truth is painful.  Through Matt’s eyes, we can begin to see the complexity of the war in Iraq, where there is not a visible difference between the good guys and the bad guys.  Just as the priest who hears confession in the hospital, McCormick shows us Matt’s story without judgement, only compassion.

This story pairs well with the true account of a soldier, Ghosts of War by Ryan Smithson, and the Young Hoosier nominee, Bull Rider by Suzanne Morgan Williams.  What other stories have you read that deal with war, whether the one in Iraq or other wars?

Ghosts of War by Ryan Smithson

Ryan Smithson was just a teenager when terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  After graduating from high school, he joined the Army Reserve.  At age nineteen, he was sent to Iraq.  His book, Ghosts of War (Harper Collins 2009), chronicles that year in Iraq.

Like most people here, I learn about what happens in Iraq through the news media–television, newspapers, and magazines.  Smithson gives a glimpse of what the war is like from a different perspective–that of the soldiers living through it every day.  The war in Iraq looks pretty different through those eyes.  I am glad I had the opportunity to read and learn from his story.  I want to thank my student, Jeremy, who donated a copy of the book for my classroom because it is not the kind of story I would have picked up on my own.

For my students who are still wondering why we read and write so much, I want to share with them from Smithson’s story.  Once he is back home, he struggles to readjust to the life he had before.  His family wants to know what it was like, but how can he find the words to describe it?  It is literature that gives him the answer.  First he describes how reading helped him during his time in Iraq:  “Every book was alive as I read it, lying in my sleeping bag.  I wasn’t in the godforsaken Middle East fighting a war.  I was in my own country:  a country of the mind…High school defines literature with terminology…But experience defines literature as more than words on paper.  Not just escape, but more important, words that have the power to heal” (Smithson 295).  That’s what I hope my students learn to take away from the reading they do.

While taking a college composition class (that’s a writing class), Smithson first writes about one of his experiences in Iraq.  With his teacher’s encouragement, he shares it with his classmates ate the end of the semester.  It is difficult to read, but doing so changes both his classmates and himself.  I love how he describes the power of story:  “It’s funny, but all I did besides sit in a dump truck during the ambush was write a story about it.  It’s funny, but the story is what matters.  The story is what changes, at least for a moment, the way these people feel.  And what an empowering sensation it is to share it” (Smithson 300).