Very happy to have a long weekend for ANZAC day – half the sport commitments and an extra day with my family – love it! Mr 6 has been talking about ANZAC day – the war, the fighting, the dying, the remembering. I read him One minute’s silence, written by David Metzenthen and illustrated by Michael Camilleri. (Miss 9 and Mr 12 read it, too – one of those books that grows with the reader each year. The illustrations are contemporary and sophisticated, the language is emotive so appropriate for a wide range of kids.)
This one is particularly moving because:
- every sentence begins with something like – In one minute’s silence you can imagine …
- the use of evocative Australian images – wild colonial boys … a dairy farmer’s dawn … blokes from the big smoke … bare-knuckled bushmen
- the Turkish viewpoint – the strangers wading through the shallows, intent on streaming into the homeland of the Turkish people … what the Turkish fighters felt when they knew they could hold the high ground
- the crosshatch illustrations – black and white, maybe a touch of sepia
- how the illustrations tell a story on top of the words – the book begins with a picture of some older kids in a classroom setting. The same kids are present in every illustrations, part of the war action – they mirror the horror and shock that we, as readers, feel.
- the inclusion of the truce day, where the Australians and the Turkish met without weapons, sharing cigarettes and shovels as they buried their dead in the cool Turkish earth
- the simple, yet evocative language – In one minute’s silence, you can imagine the great crop of crosses the Anzacs left behind … and the promises given to never forget the boys who would not wake to the hushed footsteps or the whispered farewells.
Lest we forget.
Lovely. History is what makes us. If children can be encouraged to seek it out, they gain so much.
I agree!