Title: The Day War Came Author: Nicola Davies Illustrator: Rebecca Cobb Publisher: Somerville, MA : Candlewick Press Copyright: 2018 Recommended Age Range: 6-12 Formats: Hardback (32 Pages) Available from: Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Bools-A-Million, IndieBound Critical Score: 4/5 Storyteller Score: 1/5 |
Official Summary: Imagine if, on an ordinary day, after a morning of studying tadpoles and drawing birds at school, war came to your town and turned it to rubble. Imagine if you lost everything and everyone, and you had to make a dangerous journey all alone. Imagine that there was no welcome at the end, and no room for you to even take a seat at school. And then a child, just like you, gave you something ordinary but so very, very precious. In lyrical, deeply affecting language, Nicola Davies’s text combines with Rebecca Cobb’s expressive illustrations to evoke the experience of a child who sees war take away all that she knows.
Review: From time to time, a book will come out that just demands to be talked about and spread around for one reason or another. Oftentimes, it's just because the book is well-written, fun to look at, or just a solid example of what I or someone else considers to be a "good book." Other times, it's because the book has such a strong message that it becomes instantly remarkable and memorable. The Day War Came is a perfect example of the latter in that it is a book that tackles a difficult topic many try to avoid, particularly in the world of juvenile literature, and manages to do so in the compelling and heart-wrenching method possible.
Due to the story's inherent emotional baggage, it should be fairly obvious that it isn't the happiest story to read. Rather, it is so heavy and critical that it might deserve being called exploitative and manipulative, considering how it moves and pushes through its difficult subject matter using a character that is inherently designed to sympathetic. Specifically, the main character of this story is a young girl who begins the story as you might expect a child would. She gets up in the morning, eats breakfast with her parents, and then runs off to school to learn about birds and volcanoes. She is, by all accounts, your standard elementary school-age child. Just as quickly as her humanity, family life, and general normalcy are established, though, all of that is instantly wiped away in a swirling cloud of dust and darkness that represents the indescribable tragedies of war.
Just like that, the girl's life is upended as the war takes away everything and everyone she ever knew, becoming the sole survivor of her family and class. Just like that, she is forced to flee with all the other refugees in the vague hope that she might be able to run away to some place where the war can't reach her--a dream that quickly proves to be more difficult than it sounds. While the girl does escape the battlefield of her home and eventually settles in a refugee camp outside of what looks like your standard British hamlet, she finds herself constantly hounded by the negativity and misfortune she identifies as being similar to, if not a direct result of, the war itself. The memories of her home, the exhaustion of her journey, the way the people in this new country shun her, and the simple fact that she cannot even go back to school because "there are no extra chairs" she could use--everything is a constant reminder of how she's suffered and how helpless she is to make things better.
Though this girl's journey could easily be seen as contrived, in that she's conveniently in the worst situation most people could imagine. It's easy to look at how miraculous it is that this character is alive at all and label it as contrived and emotionally forced. Looked at objectively, that criticism makes sense since many children forced into such a situation wouldn't even live long enough to suffer the moral atrocities this girl undergoes. Yet, at the same time, such a criticism would be missing the point. Though the story of this girl is lifted from the tale of a real refugee girl, Davies' story isn't about one person and what they've suffered. The child of this story is forever unnamed because they are not meant to be their own character so much as a proxy to the experience of every war-torn refugee and child that has been displaced by tragedy. In spite of her proxy nature, though, the presence of this girl does wonders to internalize and humanize the feelings of people like her, calling attention to the humanitarian refugee crisis that is happening across the globe.
Thankfully, the book does not end in a dark and troubling place, as you might expect of a story based on a very critical and sensitive subject. Rather than prolonging the girls' suffering, Davies' poem ends on a cry for activist aid in the form of a young boy visiting the girl and handing her the chair she'll presumably use to gain her spot in the local school. Though the chair itself is a rather arbitrary symbol, one based on a pathetic excuse to deny a refugee child the education they need, the boy's token action presents itself as a simple but profound statement: These people and children need help and even the smallest kindness can mean the world to them. As the girl explains, this kindness and the opportunity to be a kid again that it represents is exactly what she needs to slowly and steadily push back the war.
What's particularly astounding and impactful about The Day War Came isn't necessarily it's story, though. While the Davies' gripping narrative poem and Cobb's simple but powerful illustrations do wonders to make this title stand out from the pack, I personally revel at the history and potential of this work. Originally written as a poem for The Guardian in response to the refugee crisis in England, Davies' inspired a whole movement of sympathy and support for refugees. It inspired authors, artists, and people at large to spread awareness of stories like this one through the posting of chairs, illustrated and real, under the hashtag #3000chairs, referring to the 3000 unaccompanied refugee children the UK voted to turn away back in April 2016. Through the help of fellow activists, Davies rereleased the narrative poem along with Cobb's childish illustrations in the form of this book. That history alone would be a fantastic method for this book to be looked at in an academic setting as an analysis on the growth and development of activist literature. A journalism class in a high school or college-level would similarly do well to study how Davies' post in The Guardian exploded into a social media frenzy. Toning things down, though, this book in general would serve as a fantastic introduction to who and what refugees are that children would be able to more easily understand and relate to. Though I wouldn't use if for any students above 2nd or 3rd grade, personally, Davies' refusal to dig too deep or get too gritty in her narrative and Cobb's child-like illustrations do wonders to make the work feel accessible. Added to an American history unit on the pilgrims or the Native Americans on the Trail of Tears, and you'd have fuel for all kinds of discussion that might make those past events seem all the more real to the kids. Of course, though, such a text would need to be used carefully since it is almost certainly a sensitive topic for some. Still with a caring and structured hand, this book could do wonders to teach kids about a modern day crisis and the empathy they should show people in need.