Music and Drum: Voices of War and Peace, Hope and Dreams - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399220240 ISBN 13: 9780399220241

Publisher: Philomel, 1997

Synopsis

An international collection of poetry by children, war survivors, and such renowned authors as Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, and Eve Merriam reflects on the horrors, fears, hardships, and loss of war and the hope, determination, and wonder of peace.

About this title

Review

Children who have experienced war can be preternaturally eloquent, and often are in Laura Robb's collection. Even the bluntest of responses to violence can have a touch of poetry to them. In Music and Drum, however, the editor has also collected the reactions of adults, many of them fine poets, including Langston Hughes and Carl Sandburg. The theme is all of a piece, but the balance occasionally goes awry--with grown-up eloquence sometimes besting a child's simplicity. (Age 8 and older)

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-9. A collection of poems that focuses on the effects of war and the hope for peace. The contributors range from well-known writers such as Carl Sandburg and Langston Hughes to young people living in countries torn by violence. The first set of poems addresses the physical and emotional devastation of war. Works such as 11-year-old Amit Tal's "Father and Son" ("He wanted just this once/To live again with his Dad...But the war silenced the song,/A love song of a father and his son...") strip away any thoughts that war is a heroic conflict without pain and destruction. The second section focuses on peace. These poems look beyond the battles to what can come next. Nine-year-old Matti Yosef writes, "I don't like wars./They end in wreaths and monuments;/I like Peace come to stay,/And it will some day." The final part presents dreams of an existence where war is unknown. The digitally manipulated photographs have been combined, tinted, and filtered to produce gauzy, dreamlike compositions that invite contemplation. People of various races and ages are depicted in images that relate to the selections and have a message of their own. This book is on a smaller scale than Ann Durrell and Marilyn Sachs's The Big Book for Peace (Dutton, 1990) and On the Wings of Peace (Clarion, 1995), edited by Walter D. Myers and others; its brevity and clarity make it an appealing and accessible choice for independent reading. All three titles would be useful for teachers trying to help students comprehend the many facets of warfare.?Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Philomel
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0399220240
• ISBN 13: 9780399220241
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 32
• Editor: Laura Robb, Debra Lill