by James Riordan
A hard-hitting, graphic and, at times, upsetting account of soldiers on the front line during the First World War. Nothing is held back from the 'telling it as it is' way of storytelling. You may have read fantasy and science fiction stories of monsters or zombies tearing people's limbs off and blood pumping out of wounds, and 12-yr-olds probably love that horror and gore. Yet when the same imagery is used to describe soldiers being blown to pieces, decapitated by shrapnel, or taking their own lives because they can't take the horror any more, it is far more upsetting to read. The publishers mark the book as 12 plus, but I will be careful who I'll be recommending this to. There's a section about propaganda, but it is not named as such, so if a child were to read this, they would think those things actually happened - I can't describe them here because they are too appalling. Yet I don't want you to think that this book shouldn't be read by children. It's educational, it's shocking, you learn the difference between the soldiers on the front line eating dry biscuits and sometimes drinking rain water mixed with blood in the trenches, and the senior officers in their cosy warm cottages eating roast dinners and drinking port. The title of the book refers to Christmas Day 1914, when the German and British soldiers decide to call a day's truce, and come together to play football and shake hands on No Man's Land. They are friends one day, but enemies the next. At the start of each chapter, there is a moving poem written by war poets, for example Wilfred Owen, and these short bursts of prose add to the solemnity of the book.
The book was first published in 2000, and has been re-released ready for publication in 2014 - the centenary of the First World War. The author James Riordan died in 2012 aged 66.
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