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War Game (Special 100th Anniversary of WW1 Ed.)

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LoveReading4Kids Says

LoveReading4Kids Says

One of our Books of the Year 2014   It was Christmas Day in the trenches in France during World War One and a remarkable football match took place. British and German soldiers put down their weapons and took up a game of football instead. For one day, the enemies are friends: they talk and play instead of fighting. But, the war isn’t over and next day they pick up their weapons and the lads from Suffolk are ordered to go over the top…An astonishing story beautifully told in words and pictures…

Winner of the prestigious Smarties Prize, this unputdownable, yet at times harrowing story of a group of boys from Suffolk who sign up to fight in World War One is a classic.  Written in memory of his Uncle who died during World War One this is probably the best children’s book for a youngster to read and begin to understand what his or her ancestors’ sacrificed their lives for to bring peace and prosperity to this country.  It’s a masterpiece.

Other titles in this series of books set in, around and after the two world wars of the 20th century by Michael Foreman include,  After the War was Over, War Game, War Boy, Farm Boy and Billy the Kid.

And a message from the author and illustrator, Michael Foreman:

IN MEMORY OF MY UNCLES, WHO DIED IN THE GREAT WAR.
WILLIAM JAMES FOREMAN, KILLED AGED 18
FREDERICK BENJAMIN FOREMAN, KILLED AGED 20
WILLIAM HENRY GODDARD, KILLED AGED 20
LACY CHRISTMAS GODDARD, DIED OF WOUNDS CHRISTMAS DAY 1918 AGED 24

Two brothers walked out of my Grandfather’s little Suffolk cottage amongst the hollyhocks and went to War. Their names are on the village War Memorial. A third brother, my father, was too young to go with them.  Two other young men, my mother’s brothers, left Granny’s Norfolk village pub and went to war.  Their names are on another War Memorial. 

There are no photographs of these young men. They didn’t live long enough to have children. They left just four names amid a multitude.  My father died one month before I was born … but, back then, all my friends were growing up without their fathers. They were all away in World War II.


The only local men around were too old for this new War, but were still haunted by the ghosts of World War I. Soon, however, our village became full of men. Fathers and brothers from other lands, all on their way to war. They trained on our cliffs and beaches, camped in our woods and fields. They made a fuss of us – the last children they would see before hitting the beaches of occupied Europe. And so another multitude went off to war.


As I write this, sitting in our London garden, there are hollyhocks standing to attention in the shade like the hollyhocks around Grandfather’s cottage. There are four of them.

LoveReading4Kids

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