Why War Is Never a Good Idea
by Alice Walker, Stefano Vitale
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 88)
Read in May, 2008
Wow. Alice Walker packs a powerful, heart-wringing poem into a picture book. The artwork is amazing. The whole thing leaves you sitting, staring at the inside back cover, with tears in your eyes and your mind blown.
Every child should have a copy of this book. It should be as ubiquitous as Good Night Moon or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Likewise, every adult should read this book - and then re-read it often so that we can hang onto all the important reasons to work for Peace.
Every child should have a copy of this book. It should be as ubiquitous as Good Night Moon or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Likewise, every adult should read this book - and then re-read it often so that we can hang onto all the important reasons to work for Peace.
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Read it and talk about it. . . with your peers, your children, your grandchildren.
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
no one
With lines like “You could die While Choking & Holding Your Nose,” this book gets my vote for "Picture Book Most Likely to Give Your Kid Nightmares."
I didn't like this book. At all. It felt like a piece of political propaganda disguised as a children's book. It looks like a picture book, but it reads like a depressing poem written by that the weird guy in my college poetry workshop who wore a skull t-shirt and army jacket and wrote about death and public urination. The guy ...more
I didn't like this book. At all. It felt like a piece of political propaganda disguised as a children's book. It looks like a picture book, but it reads like a depressing poem written by that the weird guy in my college poetry workshop who wore a skull t-shirt and army jacket and wrote about death and public urination. The guy ...more
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Read in March, 2008
"Poet and activist Alice Walker personifies the power and wanton devastation of war in this evocative poem." Why true Is never a Good Idea is a brilliantly simple poem. It depicts the destruction of war but relates it to a human scale. Stefano Vitale's illustrations are breathtakingly colorful until War begins encroaching on the peaceful villages. Vitale uses painting, collage and texture to juxtapose nature and War. School Library Journal included Why War is Never a Good Idea in its B...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommended to Heather by:
alice herself when she mentioned it on book tv
content and pictures that inspire reverence for peace and life.
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I endorse the sentiment wholeheartedly but didn't care for the poetry. For some reason the ampersand as a line of poetry bothered me and it was used repeatedly. Both the poetry and the illustrations were ambiguous. Alice Walker and Stefano Vitale have collaborated before with spectacular results. I'm going to check There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me out of the library again to remind myself that I really do like Alice Walker. It's one of my favorites.
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Read in August, 2008
This book is not for the very young. I read to my 7-year-old and it was really too disturbing for bedtime. Photos were perhaps more disturbing than the words. I figured that out after reading it to him at bedtime. It ends very open-ended, which did lead to a great discussion about war in general, and what's going on in the world today, and his parents' opinions on the war.
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Read in February, 2008
This is a good introduction to the horrors of war, both with the text and perhaps even more so through the morphing illustrations. The book conveys the themes in a thought provoking but not scary way, which is, of course, important for a picture book! Fans of Walker's adult works may wish to share this with the young ones in their lives.
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Read in July, 2008
Wait, this book is for kids? Besides the rather poor poetry (ampersands should NEVER be lines of poetry), the imagery and phrase-choice is a bit...disturbing. Maybe the author wanted to scare children into hiding under their beds and never going to war when they get older? Seems that way...
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Read in August, 2008
I want to put this into the hands of SO MANY...
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Read in March, 2008
In this beautifully illustrated picture book, the poet and activist author successfully conveys the ugliness of war through beautiful illustration and simple text.
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Read in January, 2008
This is much better as a read-aloud than it is when read silently. I don't love the pictures, but they work, and Walker's words are so powerful.
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A great picture book with some really great illustrations. I like the subject, but question how much sense it will make to kids.
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
people who like to roll their eyes
This may be the worst children's book ever written. (And yeah, I've read The Giving Tree.) Avoid it like the plague.
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