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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.
Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and an American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. She has written numerous poems, essays, and short stories, including her most recent book, The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart. Originally published in 1974, Langston Hughes: American Poet was Alice Walker's first book for children. This picture book biography is now back in print with a new author's note and beautiful new illustrations. Ms. Walker lives in Northern California.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Suffer the Children,
By
This review is from: Why War Is Never a Good Idea (Hardcover)
I had the distinct pleasure of listening to the author read her book at Town Hall today. There's something added when an author reads her work; something more when she knows how to read well.
In a culture where the Martian god of war is worshiped, where we are told to be all we can be, to be strong, to be an army of one, this book is a helpful corrective. Again and again our culture teaches us from the youngest ages to resort to violence and war- it is the practical and reasonable solution. There is so little out there like Alice Walker's work, teaching the youngest that there is actually an alternative. The poetry itself is moving and inspiring. It rolls off the tongue and enters the soul. And the pictures- they are exquisite. The jungle is shown in all of it's intense and multi-layered beauty. And equally so we are presented with vivid horrors of war. This is not imagery that will frighten little children or disgust adults, but rather something that shows war to be the ugliness it is, in a way even a little child can understand. And as long as we are called to be like little children, this is a book that even an adult can understand as well. Also recommended: How to Teach Peace to Children
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Why War Is Never A Good Idea book review,
By
This review is from: Why War Is Never a Good Idea (Hardcover)
Why War Is Never A Good Idea written by Alice Walker and illustrated by Stefano Vitale. This is a childrens book for all ages that is written in poem format. I think that most people would disagree with that because some of the wording and illustrations are not appropriate for young children. I think that this book and the topic of war would be appropraite for about age 10 and up. The language of the book is hard for young children to understand and fully grasp and even some adults may not understand the wording. The illustrations are well done they might frighten a child. I would not chose this book to read to students or if I had my own kids. I think that there could be a book about war that is more suitable to introduce children to war. Overall I would give this book a 2/5.
22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Richie's Picks: Why War is Never a Good Idea,
By Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Why War Is Never a Good Idea (Hardcover)
"And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates, well, there ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die"
-- Country Joe McDonald "Though War speaks Every language It never knows What to say To frogs." In her latest picture book, WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA, Alice Walker personifies War, and through a series of verses she reveals the terrible costs and far reaching effects of War's behavior. WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA will undoubtedly be a very controversial book. I mean, it is one thing to argue over whether or not the war we are in right now is or ever was a good idea. But come on! If any of us were alive in America two hundred and thirty years ago, wouldn't we jump at the chance to get our hands on a muzzle-loading rifle and shoot a ball of lead through the facial features and cheekbone and into the brains of some British family's eighteen-year-old son? I don't care if you're male or female, when it came down to it and the rich white merchants and slave-owning planters had instigated a revolution, wouldn't you have been prepared and psyched to jam a bayonet through the clothing, skin, and stomach muscles, and then in through the vital organs of some teenage creep from across the ocean who was wearing the wrong color uniform? "But if we didn't do it." students might argue in response, "We'd never have become free. We'd still be part of England now!" And, responding back, I would offer to organize a debate on the subject after those students had taken the time to prepare by reading from a list of books about the ideas and politics and world events that led to the Revolutionary War such as Natalie Bober's COUNTDOWN TO INDEPENDENCE: A REVOLUTION OF IDEAS IN AMERICA AND HER AMERICAN COLONIES: 1760-1776, or Marc Aronson's THE REAL REVOLUTION: THE GLOBAL STORY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. "It's always the old to lead us to the war Always the young to fall" -- Phil Ochs Thus, a discussion of WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA is likely to involve students questioning whether certain wars were actually good wars based upon good ideas, and the teacher or parent who has got his or her act together will channel that inquiry into student research in preparation for waves of great group learning. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about the Revolutionary War or Little Big Horn or Hitler or Vietnam there are great books in print that will lead students to root causes and -- if we're lucky -- have students recognize that something happened before the war to cause it and something happened before that which lead to the causes which led to the war (See my recent review of PREVIOUSLY by Allan Ahlberg.), and that what is going on in the country and the world today -- this very day -- will either lead to a future war somewhere for some reason or will not lead there based upon the decisions of those who we have elected to public office. Higher order thinking is necessary for students to achieve understanding of this Big Picture -- the interrelatedness of events large and small -- and there are many of us who would argue that the development of that sort of thinking does not come about by "teaching to the test." And so this book might be additionally controversial because it could lead to debates over educational philosophies and whether or not we are at all preparing students to be problem solvers who can recognize and assess the Big Picture or are just creating human fodder for the next War. "Though War has a mind of its own War never knows Who It is going To hit." What should not be controversial about WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA is the artwork by Stefano Vitale. In 1995, during my very first season as a Children's Buyer, I was (pardon the pun) blown away by Vitale's paintings that reillustrated Charlotte Zolotow's WHEN THE WIND STOPS, a picture book I'd first read as a young child. The paintings that he has done for WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA are the best work I've seen of his, and I'm seriously thinking about reproducing the last painting -- a circle of faces peering down into a well that has been contaminated by War -- to make myself a custom teeshirt. "Though War is Old It has not Become wise It will not hesitate To destroy Things that Do not Belong to it Things very Much older Than itself." Oh...dear. I was just paging through again, feasting my eyes on those paintings, and I found this verse accompanied by a painting of ruins with a statue from which the head has been detached and the body of the statue has...err...breasts. So, I suppose the paintings are going to be controversial in some quarters as well. "He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew and he knows he shouldn't kill and he knows he always will kill you for me my friend and me for you" -- Donovan You'd think that a Black woman like Alice Walker -- the Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE COLOR PURPLE would have at least thought that the Civil War was a good idea. But, then again, I expect she knows that if we had not fought the Revolutionary War and had remained part of England, then slavery would have been ended a generation earlier without a war, just as it did in England. Sound like a topic for debate? "Though War has a mind of its own War never knows Who It is going To hit." One of my biggest dreams has just come true for me. I am getting to develop and teach an online class in the spring through San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science on Picture Books for Older Readers. Thanks to Alice Walker and Stefano Vitale, I now have a book to share for my opening class meeting.
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