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Re: nonfiction and battle book clubs
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From: Ann Jacobus Kordahl <ajkordahl_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:53:28 -0700
I’m a children’s fiction writer and a list-serve lurker. I would also classify myself as a pacifist.
However, I have three sons, at least two of whom would no doubt have enthusiastically joined a books-about-battles group. We lived as corporate expats outside the US for most of their childhoods, including in the Middle East for several years. Granted, they perhaps think differently about soldiers and weapons than most Americans, having lived under the immediate threat and protection of both.
They are all avid readers but always gravitated to nonfiction.
I so appreciate the librarians in the international American and British schools who did not judge my three sons’ interests but provided them with stacks of the nonfiction books to which the boys were drawn--not only on space, computers, religions, animals, and geography--but on occasion, battlefield history, strategy, even tanks, guns and other weapons.
Our oldest son who loved sci-fi, and who majored in Computer Science, is planning on joining the Marines when he returns from studying in China. I think this is because he is a responsible kid and sincerely wants to help protect the freedoms he thinks Americans take for granted. While I see it a little differently and am not as excited about his decision, I respect it. I do not blame the books.
The second oldest son who embraced Vikings, Huns, Romans and military history, made it a point during high school to visit WWI and WWII battlefields and graveyards in France and wrote college essays on it. Far from considering it glamorous, I think he grasps the lessons inherent in th e mass slaughter of entire male European generations. He is in a top university, majoring in Political History. He intends to go into business--another battlefield some would argue.
My youngest son is more of a science and astronomy buff, and also a fiction reader. He did go through a phase where he found guns interesting. He’s o n to other things now, like super nova explosions : )
Ann Jacobus San Francisco, CA http://www.annjacobus.com
Received on Fri 15 Oct 2010 12:53:28 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:53:28 -0700
I’m a children’s fiction writer and a list-serve lurker. I would also classify myself as a pacifist.
However, I have three sons, at least two of whom would no doubt have enthusiastically joined a books-about-battles group. We lived as corporate expats outside the US for most of their childhoods, including in the Middle East for several years. Granted, they perhaps think differently about soldiers and weapons than most Americans, having lived under the immediate threat and protection of both.
They are all avid readers but always gravitated to nonfiction.
I so appreciate the librarians in the international American and British schools who did not judge my three sons’ interests but provided them with stacks of the nonfiction books to which the boys were drawn--not only on space, computers, religions, animals, and geography--but on occasion, battlefield history, strategy, even tanks, guns and other weapons.
Our oldest son who loved sci-fi, and who majored in Computer Science, is planning on joining the Marines when he returns from studying in China. I think this is because he is a responsible kid and sincerely wants to help protect the freedoms he thinks Americans take for granted. While I see it a little differently and am not as excited about his decision, I respect it. I do not blame the books.
The second oldest son who embraced Vikings, Huns, Romans and military history, made it a point during high school to visit WWI and WWII battlefields and graveyards in France and wrote college essays on it. Far from considering it glamorous, I think he grasps the lessons inherent in th e mass slaughter of entire male European generations. He is in a top university, majoring in Political History. He intends to go into business--another battlefield some would argue.
My youngest son is more of a science and astronomy buff, and also a fiction reader. He did go through a phase where he found guns interesting. He’s o n to other things now, like super nova explosions : )
Ann Jacobus San Francisco, CA http://www.annjacobus.com
Received on Fri 15 Oct 2010 12:53:28 PM CDT
