Why War Is Never a Good Idea - Hardcover

Walker, Alice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060753854 ISBN 13: 9780060753856

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2007

Synopsis

Though War is Old

It has not

Become wise.

Poet and activist Alice Walker personifies the power and wanton devastation of war in this evocative poem.

Stefano Vitale’s compelling paintings illustrate this unflinching look at war’s destructive nature and unforeseen consequences.

About this title

About the Authors

Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet, and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, five children’s books, and several volumes of essays and poetry. She has received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the National Book Award, and has been honored with the O. Henry Award, the Lillian Smith Award, and the Mahmoud Darwish Literary Prize for Fiction. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and received the Lennon Ono Peace Award. Her work has been published in forty languages worldwide.

Stefano Vitale's award-winning artwork appears in galleries and exhibitions as well as in such picture books as When the Wind Stops, by Charlotte Zolotow (an ALA Notable Book). Mr. Vitale is a graduate of the University of Southern California and of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He lives with his family in Venice, Italy.

From the Back Cover

Though War is Old

It has not

Become wise.

Poet and activist Alice Walker personifies the power and wanton devastation of war in this evocative poem.

Stefano Vitale’s compelling paintings illustrate this unflinching look at war’s destructive nature and unforeseen consequences.

Reviews

"Though War is Old / It has not / Become wise," Walker writes in this spare, eloquent poem. Naive-style paintings in neon-bright colors celebrate forest diversity and urban communities across the globe. Then each community, in turn, is destroyed by war, its glowing warmth disappearing beneath clouds of smoke and ash. On the first page, a smiling frog and a beautiful pink flower bask in a pond; on the opposite page, "Huge tires / Of a / Camouflaged / Vehicle are /About to / Squash / Them flat." Then the destruction intensifies: something drops from the sky on a Latino boy dreaming on a haystack. Images of eyes greedy for oil give way to a stark picture of mothers and babies buried beneath swirling, tactile streams of waste. The communities are always idyllic, with no hint of poverty or struggle, but the activist message and sometimes frightening images will compel children to talk about what they feel and see. Add this to "Core Collection: Peace Not War," in Booklist, November 1, 2006. Rochman, Hazel

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060753854
• ISBN 13: 9780060753856
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Vitale Stefano
• Number of pages: 32