The Great War: Stories Inspired by Items from the First World War

Eleven authors mark the centenary of WWI with original short stories that are simultaneously poignant, thought-provoking, and relevant. David Almond, Michael Morpurgo, Ursula Dubosarsky, Marcus Sedgwick, and others anchor their fictional narratives around objects specific to that time—the nose of a zeppelin bomb, a wartime butter dish, etc. In A.L. Kennedy’s stream-of-consciousness narrative, “Another Kind of Missing,” a child relates his visit to his recuperating soldier father; half his face is gone, but “the men and women at the Tin Noses Shop.... will make him a mask.... And no one will be able to tell the difference from how he was.” And Tanya Lee Stone’s “A Harlem Hellfighter and His Horn,” written in verse, follows an aspiring musician who takes up with bandleader James Reese Europe, eventually joining the famed infantry regiment (“There was no question about it for me./ I followed Europe to/ Europe/ without taking a beat”). Kay’s haunting b&w illustrations bookend each story, exploding into pointy geometric shapes that recall shrapnel. Explanations of the featured objects conclude this evocative, potent anthology. Ages 10–up. (Apr.)