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A review by panda_incognito
The Great War: Stories Inspired by Items from the First World War by David Almond
3.0
The graphic design is splendid, the layout is appealing, and the concept of writing stories inspired by WWI artifacts is fascinating, but like with any short story collection, the stories themselves are hit-or-miss. Some are moving and well-written, but others seem like self-indulgent tripe from an author in love with their own writing voice. The writing style is sometimes rambling and incoherent, and I best liked the stories where I could get absorbed in the tale instead of thinking, "this vague, fragmented sentence is supposed to inspire thoughts of how futile the war was." Style works best when it is subtle, and it bothered me that so much of the writing seemed contrived and over-the-top.
Some of these were great human interest stories that made the war seem real and created compassion for the real people it harmed, but others came off as agenda-driven. Two of them troubled me on an ideological level, since their ideas about peace allowed no room for nuance or complexity. The vast majority of people want a peaceful world, but these stories elevated the POV character as a rare and tormented peace-lover in a world of warmongers. There was rarely any sensible explanation that war is sometimes necessary and sometimes futile and meaningless; instead, we had two extremes: knuckleheads who thought struggle was inherently glorious and main characters who thought they were better than everyone else and Deeply Misunderstood because they wanted peace.
I find it odd that this anthology is catalogued as juvenile, since the stories are adult in their themes and tone. This is not to say that children cannot handle depressing material or should be sheltered from the realities of our world history, but the fact is that this anthology of WWI short stories is written in an adult style. Of all the stories with children as the POV characters, I only liked two or three. The authors tended to overdo the child's innocence and tried to be artful; they really just sounded self-indulgent and grasped little of what it is like to be, think, and act like a child. The stories seemed gratingly unreal, more like the author's efforts at sounding eloquent and creative than a possible story of a small child's human experience during the war. Few of them seemed true at all, and I had trouble suspending my disbelief as I read the unrealistic thought processes and overdone Childishness the adult authors imposed on their young characters. The stories featuring teenagers were the best, because they were the most story-driven and seemed authentic.
I am glad that I read this book, because I enjoyed some of the stories and benefited by thinking through the failings of the ones I did not like. It was worthwhile to me, but I would not recommend this anthology to any child. This book may be written for all ages, but only adults who like children's books will actually enjoy it.
Some of these were great human interest stories that made the war seem real and created compassion for the real people it harmed, but others came off as agenda-driven. Two of them troubled me on an ideological level, since their ideas about peace allowed no room for nuance or complexity. The vast majority of people want a peaceful world, but these stories elevated the POV character as a rare and tormented peace-lover in a world of warmongers. There was rarely any sensible explanation that war is sometimes necessary and sometimes futile and meaningless; instead, we had two extremes: knuckleheads who thought struggle was inherently glorious and main characters who thought they were better than everyone else and Deeply Misunderstood because they wanted peace.
I find it odd that this anthology is catalogued as juvenile, since the stories are adult in their themes and tone. This is not to say that children cannot handle depressing material or should be sheltered from the realities of our world history, but the fact is that this anthology of WWI short stories is written in an adult style. Of all the stories with children as the POV characters, I only liked two or three. The authors tended to overdo the child's innocence and tried to be artful; they really just sounded self-indulgent and grasped little of what it is like to be, think, and act like a child. The stories seemed gratingly unreal, more like the author's efforts at sounding eloquent and creative than a possible story of a small child's human experience during the war. Few of them seemed true at all, and I had trouble suspending my disbelief as I read the unrealistic thought processes and overdone Childishness the adult authors imposed on their young characters. The stories featuring teenagers were the best, because they were the most story-driven and seemed authentic.
I am glad that I read this book, because I enjoyed some of the stories and benefited by thinking through the failings of the ones I did not like. It was worthwhile to me, but I would not recommend this anthology to any child. This book may be written for all ages, but only adults who like children's books will actually enjoy it.