Linda Granfield

I was expecting a lot more from this picture book for older children. It is the story of a modern-day Canadian Forces soldier injured in Afghanistan by an IED. The actual identity of the soldier and the nature of the injury are not revealed until the end. This is a surprise and one of the book's positive features.

The Road to Afghanistan is also the story of soldiering in the generations of one Canadian family. The narrator's great-grandfather, a farm-boy from Alberta, went off to the Great show more War, a grandfather fought the good fight in the least morally ambiguous of recent wars: World War II, and now the soldier has returned from Afghanistan, forced by injury to take a new road in life.

Don't get me wrong: the bare bones of a good story are here. However, the author skirts around a modern day soldier's motivations for joining the military at all. The soldier/narrator says that the reasons for enlisting are "a story in themselves"--a tantalizing, but unsatisfactory aside to the reader. From what a number of military people have told me, it seems that many join when young and at loose ends. Wouldn't it have been interesting if Granfield had explored an idea like this with kids?! Instead we have yet another story of a sacrifice made--and for what?

I can't help reading any war-themed book for children (or adults for that matter) without thinking of eminent Jungian psychologist James Hillman's remark "Ah war...how we love it." It just wouldn't go on if we didn't love it. In his book A Terrible Love of War, Hillman describes how war provides people with a sense of moral clarity and purpose--a sense of the heroic. Until something else can fill that psychological need, I suspect it'll just go on and on.

The Road to Afghanistan could have been a good deal better if the author had had the courage to reveal something of the young soldier's (possibly confused reasons) for joining up.

Having said all of this, this book might be a good discussion starter in a Canadian upper elementary classroom. No doubt it will be read in all kinds of Canadian classrooms right before Remembrance Day. And so it goes.

I should add that I'm a big admirer of Granfield's other nonfiction works on Canada's role in the big wars of the last century. I feel, however, that she missed the mark here. I hope she tries another fiction piece for kids that will actually address some of the thornier issues show less

Shaking my head at the library's decision to discard again. Wow. This was so well done. I learned the following stuff from this book that I should have learned in either public school or college:

* About the origins of the poem "In Flanders Fields" (to which I hadn't even been exposed; can you believe it?) and its impact.
* About poppies and their connection to WWI (NEVER KNEW)
* An important date to remember...why don't we remember?
* Everyday issues of a soldier in WWI
* Warfare stuff I cared show more little about, but think is interesting now that I've learned it.

I feel that this is really important history, a matter of cultural literacy at the very least, and I feel compelled to pass this along.
This stunningly illustrated and well-written book ends with "Lest we forget." Man...we really did forget. Mission accomplished McCrae, Granfield, and Wilson. Fortunately, I predict that this is just right for my jr. high kids, so the message won't end here. Thank you. show less

“I remember Korea” is a collection of short stories as told by the Korean War (1950-1953) veterans from USA and Canada. It also includes a map of Korea, chain of events at the beginning of each chapter, an overall timeline at the end of the book, glossary of military terms used, as well as an interesting introduction, foreword and afterword describing the background and aftermath of the conflict. I found this memoir to be really well written and the stories chosen for the book are truly show more interesting, some heartbreaking and some heartwarming, and most of all showing the different sides of a war, different aspects of any conflict. I had both tears in my eyes and a smile on my face while reading it. I would recommend it to all interested in war stories as well as in current affairs, as a background book for the ongoing North Korean issue. show less

A beautifully illustrated book using the poem by McCrae, the World War I surgeon and poet. Interspersed with the lines from the short poem are pages describing the war, and a short biography of the poet. Hand this to everyone today.
I read an article in the Washington Post today about the poppies and why they appeared in the fields so abundantly. Apparently the bombings and trench digging brought the long dormant seeds to the surface where they flourished. If only they hadn't been.