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(3)
K-3
Translated by Elisa Amado.
Illustrated by
André Letria.
A series of expansive wordless spreads begins this bleak and affecting picture book personifying the insidiousness and cruelty of war. Spare, hard-hitting prose describes the things that "war is" ("War is a machine for pain...the exact destination of all our miseries") and what it does ("War feeds on hate, ambition, and spite. War invades the gentle sleep of innocents"). Stark, imagistic illustrations--sepia-toned and shadowy--portray crawling insects and spiders and slithering snakes); recognizable imagery of war and violence (soldiers packed shoulder to shoulder, bombs dropping from the sky, a pyre of books, a KKK hood) effectively underscores the story’s message. An unflinchingly thought-provoking work.