Slap Your Sides - Hardcover

Kerr, M. E.

3.2

66 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060294817 ISBN 13: 9780060294816

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

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When his brother Bud chooses not to fight in World War II due to their family's Quaker beliefs and becomes a pariah in the town of Sweet Creek, Pennsylvania, Jubal Shoemaker, who has always wanted to be just like Bud, begins to see his brother in a new light, especially since his decision is destroying their family.

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About the Author:

M.E. Kerr is a winner of the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the 2000 ALAN award from the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in East Hampton, New York, and remembers clearly the hometown boy who chose not to fight when all the other young men, including her brother, were marching off to war.

From Publishers Weekly:

Even without the influence of recent events, Kerr's (What Became of Her) hard-hitting WWII novel would sweep readers up in its urgency. Jubal Shoemaker, the 13-year-old youngest son of a Pennsylvania Quaker family, admires his oldest brother, Bud, for adhering to his antiwar convictions and registering as a conscientious objector despite ever-increasing hostility from neighbors in Jubal's small town, from residents near the facilities where Bud is sent to work, and even from some relatives. Aunt Lizzie, for example, married to a Jewish artist and living in Greenwich Village, sends Bud terse notes like, "Kiss the Jews of Greece good-bye!" Kids at Jubal's Quaker school wonder about the limits of pacifism: what if they had the opportunity to take the life of Hitler, Mussolini or Tojo? Would it really be wrong to register as a noncombatant serviceman and be a medic? As the war escalates, conflicting opinions tug Jubal's family in different directions. Even as Jubal steels himself to follow Bud's path, he develops a romantic interest in a girl who, after seeing her twin brothers off to war, has soaped the words "Your son is a slacker" on the Shoemakers' store. Kerr does not shy away from difficult questions, nor does she resolve them for readers. Instead, she pulls the rug out from under Jubal in a shocking climax, and the abruptness of the denouement intensifies its impact. This morally challenging novel is as memorable as any of Kerr's work. Ages 12-up.

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