Slap Your Sides [Hardcover]

M. E. Kerr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2001

Friends, I have to speak up and oppose this praise for a conchie, even though he is my own blood. I may love Bud Shoemaker, but I don't admire him any longer. How can I if he won't pull his weight in this war? How can you be pacifists with a madman like Hitler ready to rule the world? I want to say to you all, Wake up!

Everyone in Sweet Creek knows about Bud Shoemaker. Nothing is secret for long in that small Pennsylvania town. Bud has been asked not to lead his Boy Scout troop anymore. When he drives up at the Texaco station in his old Ford, the help take their time coming out to pump gas.

A lot of regular customers aren't buying at his family's department store, either. And a lot of the Shoemakers' friends are no longer that friendly.

Jubal Shoemaker, fourteen, finds himself being treated differently too.

One day the girl of his dreams, Daria Daniel, tells him that her father "doesn't think it's good for me to be around you people too much."

"You mean the Shoemakers? Is that what you mean?"

Bud has changed things, Jubal. A lot of people don't like what he's done. It's not just us!"

Instead of joining the armed forces with all the other young men in town, Bud Shoemaker chose to be a conscientious objector, abiding by his family's Quaker beliefs. Now Jubal, who has always idolized his brother and wanted to be like him, suddenly wonders if he can be -- if he even wants to be like him -- when Bud's decision seems to be tearing their family apart.

Editorial Reviews

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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-As a religious Quaker, Jubal Shoemaker's older brother Bud has registered as a conscientious objector during World War II, and suddenly things change for his family. Graffiti labeling Bud a slacker appears on the family department store, longtime employees and customers leave without warning, and the Shoemakers' marriage becomes strained. Jubal catches the person vandalizing the store-a girl named Daria Daniel, whose father hosts a radio show supporting the soldiers and whose twin brothers are off fighting. He falls in love with her even though he doesn't always agree with her views, but her father forbids her to have anything to do with him. Tensions increase in town and at the farm where the 13-year-old works until he accidentally kills a mentally ill Quaker while trying to protect Daria and must face the fact that he has taken another person's life. Bud, Jubal, and their mother hold firm to their religious pacifism, but Jubal is troubled by reports on the radio and from his Aunt Lizzie-a former Quaker now married to a Jew-about the atrocities being committed in Nazi Germany. The characters lack the skillful development found in Kerr's earlier books. Jubal and his brothers seem flat, and Daria and Aunt Lizzie are far more interesting. Still, Slap Your Sides will provoke thought and discussion about religion, war, and morality.

Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060294817
• ISBN-13: 978-0060294816
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,194,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What if they gave a war and nobody came?, April 10, 2002

By 

Diane R Peterson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slap Your Sides (Hardcover)

In light of the recent events and our reaction to the terror, this book asks essential questions that I'm not sure we gave ourselves time to ask. How often we tell our children/students, "Use your words," implying "not your fists" and yet after 9/11 did we follow our own advice? Read Slap Your Sides with your children. Talk about the issues of courage, pacifism and the options we have when our government acts in opposition to our conscience. Courage does not always mean going along with the crowd and patriotism comes in many forms and with many different visible outcomes. W.W.II was a good setting for this story and the Quaker beliefs an appropriate frame but these issues are vital today more than ever. I'm so glad I found this book and hope to share it with many others. Thank you ME Kerr!

3.0 out of 5 stars A little Bit Dry, October 15, 2004

By 

Ann P. Bernstein - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slap Your Sides (Paperback)

This Book Has tried to much to teach you about Quakers in WWII. The Climax is very un-noticable, There is no even exiting incident until you are 1/4 of the way done with the book. After that incident the book quites down again and the biggest scene is almost skiped. You hear after everyone in the small town knows about it.

It does have some good scenes and i would recommend it to someone who is teaching about Quakers. This book is an okay read but more educational.

5.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed SLAP YOUR SIDES., July 12, 2004

By 

KidsReads (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slap Your Sides (Hardcover)

There have been many tributes to the veterans of World War II but, as with any story, there are other points of views waiting to told. Jubal Shoemaker is thirteen years old when his older brother Bud, a strict Quaker, is called to serve in the war. But Bud is a pacifist and does not feel he can join the service and remain true to his moral purpose in life.

Instead of joining up like so many others his age, Bud decides to become a conscientious objector and serve in the Civilian Public Service. This action puts him at odds with nearly all of his town. It even sets him against some members of his own family. "Conchies" (what conscientious objectors were called) are not respected during times of war and soon the Shoemaker's are subjected to harassment due to Bud's decision. Signs reading "Your son is a slacker" or "Your Boy's Yellow" appear wherever the Shoemakers go.

Jubal is a normal thirteen-year-old who just wants his peers at school and in his town to like and respect him --- especially Daria, a pretty girl with an older soldier boyfriend and brothers in the army. Daria cannot bring herself to understand Bud's stand, and despite her friendship with Jubal she strikes out against his brother. Yet, somehow the two manage to remain friends even as the town turns its back on the Shoemakers. The stress of standing firm with Bud takes its toll on the whole family, especially since a local radio host keeps the controversy pot simmering with his anti-Conchie broadcasts. It doesn't help that he's Daria's father.

SLAP YOUR SIDES is a very difficult book to read at times. Kerr does a superb job of recreating the atmosphere of the war years for the reader. This is in part due to our being used to thinking of that time as a clear cut era without the confusing shades of gray while Kerr points out that that kind of clarity never really existed. Kerr asks us to question which is the more moral standpoint and whether doing something wrong can ever be right. I enjoyed SLAP YOUR SIDES because the characters and their relationships with each other never fail to feel truthful. This is not a book to occupy a rainy afternoon, it's a book for life.

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