Based on the eyewitness accounts of five children experiencing wars around the world, each chapter in this powerful volume tells one victim's personal story in detail, followed by a long discussion of the history and politics of the conflict. The narratives are in the third person, accompanied by occasional moving photos of the child before the war, of his or her home under fire, and a brief final "follow-up" note about where the child is now. Some young people are direct targets in cases of genocide, with child soldiers trained to dehumanize others. Some children bear the brunt of an attack, as so-called collateral damage, and suffer starvation, disease, and loss of shelter. They also lose out when there are no resources for health and education. Some are in refugee camps and army barracks. A few lucky ones are immigrants who escaped. One,Toma in Chad, remains an ongoing victim of war. The harrowing individual accounts humanize today's news reports and statistics. Add this to the Holocaust curriculum.

This book presents the life stories of five young people who have been directly affected by conflicts around the world. Each account is accompanied by a section about the history and geopolitical issues pertaining to the unrest. The writing is accessible, and the kids' stories are compelling. The many photographs of children and landscapes help contextualize their stories.

Five moving, personal stories of children caught up in wars are recounted here, each followed by short sections of historical background and explanations of the conflicts. Jimmy, from Uganda, still lives in his home; Sudanese Toma now lives in a refugee camp on the Chad border. Their experiences are relatively fresh; the others, still vividly told, are recollections of events 12-16 years ago in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Sarajevo by young adults now living in Canada. The informational sections are introductions in which, necessarily, the complicated histories of tension and the issues around these outbreaks of violence have been simplified and summarized. No sources are credited. Occasionally the writers repeat their facts; sometimes the facts change with repetition, as when the number of Tamils imported to work on Sri Lankan plantations grows from "close to a million" on one page to "a million" a few pages later. Bradbury's personal experience with children in northern Uganda lends credence to these narratives, and readers will share his sympathies with these innocent victims. (Nonfiction. 12-15)

When elephants fight, the grass suffers. This proverb, attributed to the Kikuyu people of Kenya, speaks to the essence of what this bookÆs authors convey. When adults engage in war, innocent children withstand the worst of the conflict. After a moving foreword by Kim Phuc, who was only nine when a South Vietnamese airplane bombed her and others, the book provides stories of five children from different places who have experienced war: Jimmy (Uganda), Annu (Sri Lanka), Farooq (Afghanistan), Nadja (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Toma (Sudan). In addition, readers learn about child soldiers (Uganda), religions such as Hinduism and Islam (Sri Lanka and Bosnia and Herzegovina), the Taliban (Afghanistan), and Darfur (Sudan). It is not clear how the five children were chosen, but the narratives are filled with conflict, suspense, and action. Because most details about the wars focus on civil war, readers might wonder why little attention is given to invasions by outsiders. Earth-toned pages, color photography, and informative sidebars make the book attractive. The sections on the history of the region and the causes of conflict are instructional and probably should have been presented before the narratives so readers would understand the context of the childrenÆs stories. Disappointingly the book lacks a glossary, index, bibliography, and suggestions for further reading, features that would have made the book useful to readers wishing to learn more about the regions and conflicts mentioned. Despite these shortcomings, the book offers a good starting point.ùKaaVonia Hinton-Johnson.