Gas Masks, Gangs and Gobstoppers! (War Boy: A Wartime Childhood - Michael Foreman)

Member Name: tange

Product:	War Boy: A Wartime Childhood - Michael Foreman
Date:	08/04/08 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A warm yet poignant tale of wartime childhood .

Disadvantages: Quite short.

After reading the wonderful older children's picture book War Game by Michael Foreman I was reminded that I must read one of his other books again. This one jumps from the First World War setting of War Game to the Second World War and the childhood of Foreman. Would this one be as good as War Game?

~~~THE AUTHOR.

Michael Foreman was born in Suffolk in 1938 ~ in the village of Pakefield near Lowestoft. From being a small boy he drew pictures and wrote stories and eventually ended up getting an MA from the Royal College of Art! Foreman is now a professional illustrator and writer and spends his time flitting between his homes in London and St. Ives in Cornwall. He has won many awards for his work ~ one of these was the Kate Greenaway Medal for War Boy.

~~~THE PLOT.

War Boy is a semi-autobiographical account of Foreman's early childhood in Pakefield during World War Two. It is a charming tale of growing up in a sleepy seaside town ~ a sleepy town that is transformed by the War. This area of coastline was targetted by German Bomb raids and Foreman gives his view of how the fear and noise dominated and influenced his childhood. We learn a lot about Foreman's early years ~ gas masks, gangs, gobstoppers and a great adventure, tinged with sadness.

~~~WHAT I THOUGHT.

War Boy is a lovely story filled with energy and vibrancy. Foreman's illustrations are done in the same distinctive style as his other books War Game and Wonder Goal ~ bright water colours with soft edges and fluid movement. There is a lot to look at and the pictures and text are funny and poignant at the same time. The words are few ~ it is the images that convey the story in an easy to follow and well expressed manner.

This is a story that will provoke a range of emotions in the reader. You will find yourself smiling wistfully at Foreman's reminiscences on one page and shocked by burning buildings on the next. There is a mixture of horror and beauty in the images that will gain your interest and keep it until the end. Foreman effectively combines humour and horror to create a story that is warm. It isn't hard to see how much of his own experiences are contained in this short book ~ he even uses pictures of the "souvenirs" he collected of the War as a young boy (for example ration books) to illustrate the pages.

War Boy is a fascinating history resource that would work really well in conjunction with school history lessons about the Second World War. Any child who has an interest in learning about the War will be ethralled in this book and will learn a lot. It is very easy to empathise with the children of the Hill Street and Ship Road Gangs and it is nice to find out that a "normal" childhood was possible in such a turbulent period of history.

Foreman's mother owned a shop in Pakefield so there were a lot of people for Foreman to meet. Soldiers passed through on the way to fight and all the villagers called in at the shop to pass the time of day and have a gossip. A shop is also a good setting for expressing the impact of rationing and how shortage was an integral part of life. War Boy is therefore very useful as a teaching aid and also to increase a child's awareness of hardship and War.

I thoroughly recommend that you read War Boy. It is officially aimed at children of ten years upwards, but I think that it actually has a much wider appeal than that. Younger children will appreciate the pictures and older children will understand the educational aspect. As an adult reader I still really enjoyed it too ~ I warmed to War Boy straight away and was happy to reminisce along with Michael Foreman.

~~~BOOK DETAILS.

Paperback 92 pages
(September 1991)
Publisher: Chrysalis Children's Books
ISBN: 1851457046

Currently listed on Amazon at £6.99 against a cover price of £9.99.

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Summary: A great prcture book for older children and history fans.