Christmas in the Trenches [Hardcover]

John McCutcheon (Author), Henri Sorensen (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2006 | Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up

Nominated for a GRAMMY Award in the Best Spoken Word Album for Children category!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4–In 1914, British and German troops were dug into trenches in France, facing one another across the barbed wire and barren ground called No Man's Land. On Christmas Eve, the British soldiers heard the Germans singing Stille Nacht and joined in. Spontaneously, soldiers on both sides climbed out of their trenches and met in between the lines, sharing small gifts, food, and drink. They played a game of soccer. Then they went back to their trenches. The next day, the shooting resumed. McCutcheon's account of this true event is based on a song he wrote about it in 1984. An accompanying CD includes that song, Silent Night/Stille Nacht, and a reading of the story. Sørenson's illustrations sanitize trench warfare somewhat. Michael Foreman's War Game (Pavillion, 2002) is a more sophisticated–and somewhat more cynical–presentation of this same Christmas truce.–Virginia Walter, University of California, Los Angeles
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 2-4. After Christmas dinner, Grandpa tells Thomas and Nora about his unforgettable Christmas Eve as a young soldier back in 1914, when German and Allied soldiers stopped fighting and came together to celebrate the holiday. They sang Christmas carols (including "Silent Night"), shared small gifts, and played music and soccer in No Man's Land. But as dawn broke, they returned to their separate trenches, waiting for the bombs, battles, and killing to begin again. The story is based on folksinger McCutcheon's song by the same name, which is printed in full at the end of the book, and the the text is clear and lyrical ("in two tongues one song filled the night sky"). Sorensen's beautiful double-page spreads in sepia shades show the young men from the two sides celebrating together--with individuals just like them. Lengthy notes fill in the history and present an impassioned call for peace. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 6 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Peachtree Publishers; Book & CD edition (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561453749
• ISBN-13: 978-1561453740
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 11 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Christmas in the Trenches, August 2, 2006

By 

B. Brundige "brittandjake" (Deer Park, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christmas in the Trenches (Hardcover)

A wonderful children's book filled with beautiful pictures, and a very moving tale about the WW1 Christmas truce. Book comes with the story and original song on CD.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Children's Story, October 8, 2007

By 

John Green (Hayward CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Christmas in the Trenches (Hardcover)

This is a well-written, well-illustrated, compelling children's story about the fraternization of rival soldiers during the First World War. The story of English and German soldiers singing "Silent Night" together in the trenches really humanizes the combatants in war and should lead the reader to question the sacrifice of human life in conflict. (Even older children will find this interesting, as a starting-point for exploring the First World War and other conflicts.)

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Winter Time... for Lloyd George...and Germany, March 24, 2007

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christmas in the Trenches (Hardcover)

Author John McCutcheon does a generally fine job of balancing the private hope for peace with the public horror of war in this tale of the increasingly well-known Christmas truces of WWI. These holiday-inspired truces occurred in the "No Man's Land" between the two entrenched (literally) armies, and NcCutcheon backs his history-inspired fiction with a closing "Historical Note" and references to two books: "Silent Night," by S. Weintraub, and :Christmas Truce," by M. Brown and S. Seaton.

The violence, boredom, and sheer stupidity of this bloody war are only suggested to its intended early elementary school audience: A shadowy view of a man on a stretcher, cold, bored, sometimes sick soldiers. However, there is no denying that the book sanitizes WWI. At the conclusion, drawings of prone soldiers suggest being gunned down, but I doubt the young reader will make that interpretation.

Instead, this book is about peace breaking out--if only for a night, and Christmas Eve at that. The soldiers, separated by about maybe 100 yards, hear each other singing CHristmas songs, and the first move towards unity is a joint singing of "Silent Night." A bt later, a lone German soldier with a white flag bravely walks over the snow, and soon the trenches empty, gifts are exchanged, photos shared, and an impromptu soccer game is played on the former battlefield. That's where one can feel the impact of the book--in one transcendent night when soldiers recognized their shared humanity, the common feelings that lay deep within them.

Yes, I wanted the book to show the awful conditions in the trenches, to show even slightly more evidence of war's ravages, and to mention the who and why of the orders that placed them here. But, this is a book for young kids, and such "charged" issues would keep this book off at least some schools' library shelves and classrooms. I think though, that the afterward could have been broadened to include both the current explanation of the truces, and a brief, age-appropriate presentation of the war's causes and effects.

THe oil illustrations are outstanding. Henri Sorenson had to show the murky trenches and dark evening hours, but the pictures are clear, nicely illuminated, and focus on the combatants' faces. Whether he intended it or not, the last scene of the weary soldiers back in the trench after the truce clevrly hints at the tremendous human toll.

There is an accompanying CD featuring McCutcheon's cloying reading of his story, which tilts the tone strongly back towards the "saccharine" and "sanitized" side. It all sounds so wondrous and almost appealing that it feels unjust. He should have stuck with the three songs nicely performed on the CD: "Silent Night" in German and English, McCutcheon's recapitulation of the story "Christmas in the Trenches," which actualy, finally, sneaks in some anti-war sentiment (for example, "...Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"), and Track 4, which, strangely enough, is the same narration of the story heard at the beginning of the CD.