by Dana McFarland, B.A., M.A., M.L.I.S.
Contents:
A Select Bibliography of Young Adult Literature on World War One
Critical Resources for Young Adult Literature on Historical Fiction
According to Thomas Hardy, "War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading." While this description does not apply to all historical fiction, it is true that many authors choose to set their fictional works in wartime. The stresses of war provide an attractively dramatic setting for the exposition of plot and for character development, and there is no shortage of wars to choose from. Historical fiction has been a popular genre among readers as well as writers, and among adults and young people alike. There are several reasons for the popularity of historical fiction set in wartime, and there are also good reasons for promoting it. The literature that has emerged as a consequence of World War One makes a strong case for historical fiction both as good literature and as a means of investigating the historical period.
Why read historical fiction?
When fiction and imagination conjoin the reader escapes his/her present for another time or place. Author Patricia Lee Gauch writes that "selecting a moment in history allows the writer or reader to go back in time, to enjoy a secondary world -- a strange new world -- rich in detail, rich in essence of time and place."1 In this sense, historical fiction entertains the reader. Adults who read historical fiction usually do so for the pleasure of it. When young people read historical fiction, it may be for pleasure or it may be as part of a prescribed curriculum. In the best case, pleasure and required reading are not mutually exclusive. Well written examples of fiction set in wartime may offer the reader a compelling reading experience even while fulfilling other functions.
By entering the "secondary world" of a historical novel the reader begins to discover the past in an exciting way. The discovery can be rewarding whether or not the reader is acquainted with the historical setting. An effective narrative, which captures and holds one's interest, conveys powerfully the life and society of another time. The reader encounters a believable world with which to contrast her/his own. For a younger reader, this serves the useful purpose of introducing historical perspective. Johnson and Ebert suggest that: "egocentrism inhibits children's ability to understand some aspects of history . . . They have difficulty understanding the time any given event happened. Even more difficult is to place that event in a time line with other historical events."2 For this reason, these authors find historical fiction valuable: "Literature . . . may develop a feeling for the continuity of life. Children can see their own life in relation to those who lived in the past and who will live in the future. This helps them to understand their own place in history. They see change as natural and essential."3
The effect that Johnson and Ebert describe comes from the convergence of good historical fiction with emotional investment on the part of the reader. Both factors are essential, but the second rarely occurs without the first. Novelist Virginia Warner Brodine contends: "If a novel is poor history, it will not be a good novel. Good history, however, will not necessarily produce good art . . . Every work of history, including every historical novel, has an ideological message. But the novel is above all else an art form concerned with people as they interact with each other and as they develop and change."4 Criteria for good historical fiction appear in Nilsen and Donelson's Literature for Today's Young Adults.5 Kay Moore presents similar criteria for selecting historical novels for young people:
Setting is essential to plot events.
All details are authentic to time, place, and people.
Characters are believable and young adults relate to their problems.
Human feelings are shown to cross time spans.
Enough detail is provided so that the reader can accurately place the story in its correct historical framework.
Readers feel empathy for the time and place for having read the book.6
If the novel succeeds by these criteria, it will accurately represent historical events even as it compells the young reader's interest and empathy. "Historical fiction and biography present issues from different perspectives. This allows the student to `feel' with the characters, and thereby, face conflicting points of view."7 There are works of historical fiction, such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which have become classics because of their perennial interest for a wide readership. However, diverse readers find different books stimulating and interesting. The reader may have to explore or seek advice to find such a book, but the search is worthwhile. A reader who connects with a work of historical fiction experiences something magical: "When the reader becomes lost in a book it seems as if the characters are in the room with him. It is at this point that the reader feels as if he is on the scene while history is being made."8
Some teachers, to generate interest in the past, try to tap into the exciting relationship between reader and text _ as opposed to textbook! Johnson and Ebert suggest that "students must learn more than facts if history is to become meaningful for them. They don't relate to names of battles, dates of treaties, or to statistics any more than adults do. They relate to individuals, emotions and stories that have the ability to arouse their curiosity."9 Patricia Lee Gauch explains historical fiction's attraction for young readers: "The reader is intrigued with any world gone crazy, particularly when the roots of that event are embedded in reality."10 If the reading is thought-provoking, readers may find themselves asking questions about the events of the past. Historical fiction involves "recreating the event, setting up the questions and the scenery, and replaying it, in order to look for answers anew,"11 and the reader is invited to participate in the search for answers.
Why read fiction on World War One?
Novels on the themes and events of World War Two probably surpass in number those on the Great War of 1914 to 1918. The Second World War occurred more recently, closer to both present popular memory and the current sophisticated machinery of mass publishing and distribution. Yet, the disparity of titles may also have to do with a profound difference in the wars. At the end of the Great War, participants struggled to find meaning in what they had experienced and sacrificed, whereas the Second World War could be and was presented in the starkest possible terms, as a battle of good against evil. Confronted with the aggressive expansion of the extreme nationalist states of Germany, Japan, and Italy, abstract debate about pacifism and militarism lost its immediacy. As a legacy, the black and white contrast of the conflict provides a universally accessible backdrop to works of literature. Writing about the Second World War frequently addresses the dark depths and noble heights of conduct of which humans are capable. Memorable titles set in World War Two attest to the popularity of these themes: Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
The First World War also generated literature of lasting importance, although the subtext is generally quite different. This war, unprecedented in scale, forced hard questions of another sort on the participants: not will you fight if you must, but why does war happen at all? When wars are fought who are the real adversaries, the real winners and the real losers? In the setting of World War One, manifestations good and evil are relatively indistinct. The horrors attributed by each side to the other during the conflict were exposed as fraud when the war was over: it was left to the Second World War to make systematic atrocities against civilians come true. Instead of addressing extremes of human behaviour, writers on the Great War have dwelt on the universal consequences of war for individuals and societies, and on the false antagonisms promoted by militaristic nationalism.
Fictional characters of World War One express ambiguity toward the war, the nation-state, and the generation which sent young men into a new sort of war with no realistic idea of the consequences. Older adolescents who are exploring their own equivocal feelings are attracted to these stories. Patricia Lee Gauch states that "to a recognizedly more tolerable degree, every day is a war. Some days are bigger wars than others. The human being [is] forced into actions, reactions, decisions. If the human being is lucky, he or she has moments of light, recognition about their world and themselves, from which they will emerge different people." Perhaps peace does make "poor reading" if it means that the author does not acknowledge the conflicts inherent in living. A younger adolescent may find the ambiguities of World War One literature challenging to his/her own sense of certainty and yet still be drawn to the stories. Historical fiction set in this period can offer entertaining and thought-provoking reading for young adults. Many children suffered brutality and deprivation in the Great War. Many worked for the war effort. Many young men fought, were wounded, or died in the conflict. Young readers have an interest in and a right to know about this era in their history. The stories of young people who lived through World War One can offer insight to adolescents who are living through their own `wars'.
Selected Books on World War One
An exciting aspect of historical fiction related to World War One is the breadth of experience that it represents. The eleven novels discussed below include works to appeal to both younger and older young adults, portraying a range of national perspectives. Yet, certain themes emerge repeatedly in this literature, regardless of the country or time of origin of the individual work. As a result, it is difficult to decide how to approach these novels. They share a thematic unity, yet one is tempted to group them by (perhaps ironically) nationality or by age of audience.
Not many novels on World War One are meant for younger adolescents, but the four below might be expected to interest readers aged eleven to fourteen years. These titles represent young people from Russian Poland, Russia, rural England, and the United States. Rudolf Frank's No Hero for the Kaiser (1931) tells the story of fourteen year old Jan, whose mother is dead and whose father was taken to serve in the Tsar's army. After his uncle's death in the bombing of his village, Jan finds himself attached as mascot to a German artillery unit. Attired as a German soldier, Jan sees fighting on both eastern and western fronts. When he is wounded in France, he recovers in a ward with soldiers from all over Europe and from the French empire in Africa as well. There he witnesses a confrontation, which is quelled by the intervention of one seasoned soldier:
all of us here have been promised the skull of Sultan Mkwawa in payment for our pain and our blood. They have simply used different names. Instead of saying Mkwawa they said, freedom, fatherland, justice; to some they said, Belgrade; to others, vengeance; to others, Little Father Tsar . . . But it all meant the same, and out there on the battlefields we have found none of the things we were promised at home: no civilization, no humanity.12
The skull of an African sultan becomes a metaphor for the empty promises of nationalism. When the hierarchy of the German military attempts to make him a hero Jan rebels, following his conscience: "No one is going to make a Mkwawa of [me]."13
Frank's novel is engaging. Jan is a likeable and sincere character. Young people will enjoy his initiative, which often leads him to solve problems which the adults around him cannot. The novel promotes tolerance with gentle irony and with clear foresight of the consequences of intolerance, which must account for its burning by the Third Reich in 1933.
On the other side of the Eastern Front, Peter Neufeld lives in a Mennonite village which was relatively untouched by the war until the Russian government makes peace with Germany in 1917. Barbara Smucker's Days of Terror relates the trials of Peter's family and community in the last days of World War One, leading into the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The incompetent rule of the last Tsar and the destruction of the Great War bring down the Russian government. In the turmoil that follows, Peter's prosperous and peaceful village become newly aware of the desperation surrounding them. The Mennonites find themselves characterized as rich and greedy farmers. They become the target of repeated raids and violence. The community and Peter's family must make difficult choices: can they remain pacifist in the face of rising provocation? Should they stay in Russia? Would they be allowed to leave? Where would they go? Older readers might find Peter prissy. He loves his parents, his brother, his little sister. He almost never thinks ill of anyone. Even so, the novel accurately represents the brutality of Russia's wartime experience, and the story reflects the solidarity of community which made it possible for the Russian Mennonites to survive persecution and to begin again in new homes.
While the consequences of `peace' on the Eastern Front become known to the Neufeld family, twelve year old Elvira, her step-mother, and little step-brother are anxiously waiting for news from Elvira's father, a soldier on the Western Front. In Summer of the Zeppelin by Elsie McCutcheon, Elvira's little English village seems far removed from the fighting, but there are rumours of a German spy, and local people fear the German prisoners of war who stay in the old factory nearby. When news comes that Elvira's father is missing in France, things start to go worse and worse. Elvira knows that her step-mother no longer wants her, and she suspects that the prisoner of war who has befriended her may be a spy. It takes a crisis and a dramatic surprise for Elvira to learn that things are not always what they appear to be. The novel does have a failing in that it does not realistically represent the losses of war for British families. For Elvira there are some scary moments, but everything comes right in the end. The horrors of the war remain comfortably offstage. Accordingly, the novel may find favour with adults who favour a gentler treatment of war themes for young people. However, the novel succeeds in exposing the ambiguities behind wartime propaganda. It challenges the reader to think about the individuals who constitute `us and them'.
After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski is set in a small town in Kansas. Annie, aged thirteen, and her family welcome her doctor father home from New York, where he has been working with soldiers who were wounded in Europe. Her Uncle Paul will not return: he was killed in France. Annie is horrified and repelled by her first glimpses of her father's patients, but gradually her compassion brings her to visit the soldiers. She befriends Andrew, a badly burned and bitter young man, in spite of her mother's command that she stay away from the hospital. Ultimately, Annie must decide between her mother's wishes and what she feels is right. She finds that she has come to depend on her friendship with Andrew. Through him she reaches a new understanding of the war and of her uncle's death. If Andrew recovers and leaves the hospital, will she be able to let him go? Rostkowski's novel is moving and her characters seem real. Young adults will relate to Annie's predicament: she lies to her mother, but she lies because she knows her mother is wrong. Annie's father lies to her, but he lies to protect her. Annie's new awareness of her parents' weakness is a part of growing up that will correspond to many readers' experiences. Annie's altered outlook is dramatically underscored by her sudden apprehension that the war was not heroic, but a waste of life on a heroic scale: "All this time I'd been worrying about whether Uncle Paul died like a hero. It really doesn't matter . . . The only thing that matters is that he's dead. One way or the other . . . None of it makes any sense to me."14 The pain of her discoveries is the pain of finding that the foundations of her world are not firm after all. In their own lives, all young adult readers make similar discoveries. Annie's strength of purpose may lend them encouragement.
Each of these novels for younger adolescents introduces the reader to hard questions about family and national loyalty. None of them reward the reader with easy answers at the end. Each one does, however, present a protagonist who adheres firmly to what s/he believes to be right, regardless of popular sentiment or the weakness of others. For this reason, any one of these novels provides the young reader with an inspiring read as well as a compelling and historically accurate story.
The greater part of World War One novels are written for a more sophisticated reader than the previously mentioned works. Young people aged fifteen and up have a special interest in these stories because it was a corresponding generation which made the greatest sacrifices in the Great War and which bore the greatest disillusionment. The internationally-renowned All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (1929) is still the work by which all other novels on World War One are measured. Successive generations of young adults have been captivated by its power to evoke the deprivation and horror of trench life, the alienation of those at the front from those at home, and the fraternity of soldiers which may even transcend battle lines. The lasting quality of All Quiet on the Western Front may be attributed to its universality. The protagonist, Paul, could be a soldier from any one of the combattant countries. In one of the most gripping scenes of the novel he tries to make amends to a soldier he killed when he leapt for shelter into a shell hole. He promises to write to the dead man's family, and taking the man's wallet he finds: "I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer."15 In this moment Paul identifies completely with the soldier from the opposing side. Young readers will empathize with Paul and the other soldiers, who are realistically presented as young men whose `real' lives are tragically interrupted by the war. Remarque's poetic language and vivid imagery create lasting impressions of frontline life and death. Readers who enjoy the novel might enjoy comparing it to the film version which was made in the 1930s, but which fares well in spite of the passing of time.
Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong (1993) addresses the war on the Western Front from the Entente side. The novel begins as a passionate love story between a young English businessman and a married French woman. However, when the war erupts Stephen and Isabelle are apart emotionally and in their loyalties. Their stories diverge and meet repeatedly as the war wears on. The main narrative is supported by two strong and engaging subplots. One concerns British miners who tunnelled below the front lines for purposes of reconnaissance and setting explosives. The other is the story of Elizabeth who, looking back from the 1970s, wants to learn about the impact of the war on her grandfather's life. The story of the miners introduces readers to a fascinating, but little-known aspect of the war. Elizabeth's story illustrates what can result when history engages the imagination. Elizabeth's outlook is enlarged and transformed as she investigates the past. Most dramatically, however Faulks' evokes the squalor of the trenches, the alternating raw pain and emotional numbness of the soldiers, reminding one of the power of All Quiet on the Western Front:
It was dark at last. The night poured down in waves from the ridge above them and the guns at last fell silent.
The earth began to move . . . Within minutes the hillside was seething with the movement of the wounded as they attempted to get themselves back to their line.
"Christ," said Weir, "I had no idea there were so many men out there."
. . . Weir was shaking.
"It's all right," said Stephen. "The guns have stopped."
"It's not that," said Weir. "It's the noise. Can't you hear it?"
Stephen had noticed nothing . . . Now as he listened, he could hear what Weir had meant: it was a low, continuous moaning. He could not make out any individual pain, but the sound ran down to the river on their left and up over the hill for half a mile or more . . . it sounded to him as though the earth itself was groaning.
"Oh God, oh God." Weir began to cry. "What have we done, what have we done? Listen to it. We've done something terrible, we'll never get back to how it was before."16
The war transforms the people of Faulks' novel. They will never again know life as it was before the pointless horror and betrayal of the war. Whatever life remains to them will be lived in the awareness of what they have witnessed. This truth impresses the reader the more powerfully because Stephen, Isabelle, Weir, Jack Firebrace, and others emerge as believable characters who command interest and empathy. Although the story, realistically, has many tragic elements, these characters inspire the reader as each affirms the will to live.
Canadian writers may have generated more than their share of literature related to World War One. In historical circles it is sometimes debated that the Great War was Canada's war of independence, and that the disproportionate effort and manpower expended in the European conflict corresponded to a desire to prove worthy of full self-government. Whatever the reason, Canada's involvement in the war was extensive, and so were the consequences. One in three young men of fighting age was killed or wounded. The impact for the young country was felt in economy and society, with repercussions throughout the life of the World War One generation. Many young Canadians today do not have even grandparents who remember this war, but they do have access to writers who have artfully recreated the time.
Timothy Findley's The Wars, like All Quiet on the Western Front and like Birdsong, is a novel with universal appeal. Findley's narrative relies on a researcher who is piecing together the life of Robert Ross, a Canadian soldier, from interviews, photos, maps and letters. This war novel is something of a mystery, as the researcher attempts to discover Ross' motivation for deserting the army. This narrative strategy intrigues the reader. As the story unfolds, the reader follows the events of Robert's young life, meets his family, learns his history through observation. In the words of the researcher, "people can only be found in what they do."17 When we see Robert at home, we realize that his family life is a microcosmic war. Once the reader has traced Robert's journey into the insanity of the world war, his ultimate actions become comprehensible: "he paused for the barest moment looking at the whole scene laid out before him and his anger rose to such a pitch that he feared he was going to go over into madness. He stood where the gate had been and he thought: `If an animal had done this -- we would call it mad and shoot it' . . . It took him half-an-hour to kill the mules and horses. Then he tore the lapels from his uniform and left the battlefield."18 In Robert Ross, Findley creates a believable character who acts sincerely in an untenable situation, and who could have acted the same way, for the same reasons, regardless of his side in the war. Young adult readers will remember his strength and his humanity more than his nationality.
Hugh MacLennan and Robert MacNeil approach World War One from the vantage point of an isolated event in Canada's history of the war. In 1917 two ships collided in Halifax harbour. One was carrying munitions for the war. The result was an explosion which levelled much of the city and plunged the province into a state of emergency. Both Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan (1941) and Burden of Desire by Robert MacNeil (1992) describe events leading up to, during, and after the explosion. There are remarkable similarities between the two novels. Both feature independent young women whose lives are reshaped by the war. These strong characters capture and sustain the reader's interest. Even as they lose loved ones to the conflict overseas, new opportunities open for MacLennan's Penelope and for MacNeil's Julia. The explosion is the catalyst for dramatic changes for both women, who find strength in themselves to start over in the ruins of the war and of the city. Penelope resolves to rebuild on the foundations of her old life: "she knew that it was inevitable for [Neil] and Jean and herself to go on together . . . She was too much a scientist to forget that titanic forces once let loose are slow in coming to rest again."19 Julia also reaches a point of decision in the wake of the disaster: "She thought she could see all the years ahead of her. `I want to do something interesting with my life.'"20 In the novels of Hugh MacLennan and Robert MacNeil, the war accentuates the turning points that all young people encounter in their lives.
Two works on the Great War which come from Newfoundland, No Man's Land by Kevin Major and Salt-Water Moon by David French, have more than a regional appeal. In No Man's Land (1995) Kevin Major tells the story of the Newfoundland Regiment leading up to July 1, 1916. The reader meets Lieutenant Alan Hayward and the men who serve with him. Major draws the reader into the lives of these men in the trenches, on leave, and as they reminisce about home. Young readers, especially strangers to Newfoundland history, will be shocked and grieved by the grim finality of the ending. For those readers who know why Newfoundlanders commemorate July 1, Major's story is an agonizing build up to an inevitable conclusion. As novelist Patricia Lee Gauch states: "the appeal of historical story has something to do with the ironies of history. Because we know the ending, the twists of fate, the upside downness of history, the unpredictability, it is particularly poignant."21 For Newfoundland, even more than Canada, the impact of the Great War was devastating. The leaders of the future were among the casualties of the war in Europe, and so perhaps was the independence of Newfoundland. Ensuing years of stagnation culminated in an internally divisive move to confederate with Canada. No Man's Land sheds light on a history that is not well known outside of Newfoundland, yet it echoes the betrayal of young men from all combattant countries.
The consequences of the Great War are the subject of David French's Salt-Water Moon, a play set in outport Newfoundland. Jacob, aged seventeen, and Mary, aged sixteen, are children of families destroyed by the war. In an intense dialogue which comprises the play, they uncover the wounds and disappointments of the past in which the consequences of the Great War varied with class:
Mary: All the men couldn't enlist, could they?
Jacob: My father volunteered, didn't he, goddammit? And so did yours. Only yours is buried today under the bronze statue of a caribou in the fields of France.
Mary: Father enlisted for the same reason yours did. Will McKenzie wasn't in that position.
Jacob: No, he didn't need the dollar a day they paid . . . More money than he'd ever made in his life, Father. More money than he could make at fishing, especially when he went into collar to a merchant like Will McKenzie.
Based on the legacy of the war, torn between what they believe to be right and what they know to be practical, Jacob and Mary must decide how they will enter the future. At a recent production of this play at Queen Elizabeth High School in Surrey, B.C., the young audience was entranced by Salt-Water Moon, and the students who produced and acted in the play expressed their excitement not only with the theatrical aspects of production, but with the historical research that they did to make the production authentic. Such a level of audience engagement is more difficult to measure in the case of historical novels, which are often individually read but which may equally immerse the reader in the events of another time.
Fictional works on World War One for sophisticated young adult readers share some characteristics with novels meant for younger readers. In general, these works reject black and white representations of wartime reality. Instead, the authors investigate difficult questions of loyalty, humanity, and the consequences of war for individuals. Nevertheless, principal areas of difference appear in theme and in the representation of brutality. The literature of the war for younger adolescents explores complex ethical and emotional issues through relationships between friends or between parents and children. By contrast, in works such as Birdsong, Barometer Rising, Burden of Desire or Salt-Water Moon, older adolescents are attracted to the impact of the war on relationships between men and women. In novels for younger readers the horrors of the war inevitably appear (less so in The Summer of the Zeppelin, more so in No Hero for the Kaiser) but not as frequently or as vividly as in some works for older readers. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Birdsong, and The Wars, descriptions of the brutality, misery, and deprivation of war constitute major and powerful elements of each novel.
These examples of Great War literature for young adults approach the war from diverse perspectives, times and places, yet they all demonstrate the transforming power of the war. They are challenging works because they offer complexity in the place of simplistic representations of the past. Each artfully tells a compelling story, and each is historically accurate, offering insight into the other worlds inhabited by life-like characters. As a body of work, many of these stories contain overlapping detail: characters experience the same or similar events on the same or opposite sides in the war. The portrayal of events and characters' inevitable changes in outlook are made unique by the circumstances of each story and of each individual, even as the young reader brings a unique perspective to historical fiction for a transforming reading experience.
Endnotes
1 Patricia Lee Gauch, "Why Writers Write of War," The ALAN Review 21, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 13.
2 Nancy Johnson and Jane Ebert, "Time Travel is Possible: Historical Fiction and Biography, Passport to the Past" (Paper presented at the 36th annual meeting of the International Reading Association, Las Vegas, 6-10 May 1991. Available ERIC: ED333338), 4.
3 Ibid., 7.
4 Virginia Warner Brodine, "The Novelist as Historian," The History Teacher 21 (February 1988): 208-209.
5 Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson, Literature for Today's Young Adults, 3rd ed. (Glenview, Ill. : Scott, Foresman, 1989).
6 Kay Moore, "Finding Gold in Stories of the Past," Social Studies Review 32, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 15.
7 Johnson and Ebert, "Time Travel," 7.
8 Johnson and Ebert, "Time Travel," 6.
9 Ibid., 5.
10 Gauch, "Why Writers," 13.
11 Ibid.
12 Rudolf Frank, No Hero for the Kaiser, translated from the German by Patricia Crampton, illustrations by Klaus Steffens (New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1986), 191.
13 Ibid., 217.
14 Elsie McCutcheon, Summer of the Zeppelin (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1983), 167.
15 Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, translated from the German by A. W. Wheen (Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1929), 192-93.
16 Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong (London: Vintage, 1993), 191-92.
17 Timothy Findley, The Wars (Markham, Ont.: Penguin Books, 1977), 11.
18 Ibid., 178.
19 Hugh MacLennan, Barometer Rising (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1941), 215-16.
20 Robert MacNeil, Burden of Desire (New York: Dell, 1992), 559.
21 Gauch, "Why Writers," 13.
A Select Bibliography of Young Adult Literature on World War One
Faulks, Sebastian. Birdsong. London: Vintage, 1993.
Findley, Timothy. The Wars. Markham, Ont.: Penguin Books, 1977.
Frank, Rudolf. No Hero for the Kaiser. Translated from the German by Patricia Crampton. Illustrations by Klaus Steffens. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1986.
French, David. Salt-Water Moon. 2nd ed. Vancouver: Talon Books, 1988.
MacLennan, Hugh. Barometer Rising. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1941.
MacNeil, Robert. Burden of Desire. New York: Dell, 1992.
Major, Kevin. No Man's Land. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1995. Kevin Major provides information related to the writing and teaching of this novel at http://enterprise.newcomm.net/kmajor/nmlbook.htm
McCutcheon, Elsie. Summer of the Zeppelin. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1983.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated from the German by A. W. Wheen. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1929.
Rostkowski, Margaret I. After the Dancing Days. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Smucker, Barbara Claasen. Days of Terror. Markham, Ont.: Puffin Books, 1979.
Critical Resources for Young Adult Literature on Historical Fiction
Brodine, Virginia Warner. "The Novelist as Historian." The History Teacher 21 (February 1988): 207-13
Corbin, Denee. "Bringing Social Studies to Life through Children's Fiction." Social Studies Review 31, no. 1 (Fall 1991): 22-25.
Gauch, Patricia Lee. "Why Writers Write of War." The ALAN Review 21, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 12-16.
Hine, Robert V. "When Historians Turn to Fiction." The History Teacher 21 (February 1988): 215-19.
Johnson, Nancy and Jane Ebert. "Time Travel is Possible: Historical Fiction and Biography, Passport to the Past." Paper presented at the 36th annual meeting of the International Reading Association, Las Vegas, 6-10 May 1991. Available ERIC: ED333338.
Moore, Kay. "Finding Gold in Stories of the Past." Social Studies Review 32, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 14-21.
Nelms, Ben F. "From the Tokugawas to Taiping; from Shakespeare's London to the Gulag." English Journal 81 (October 1992): 87-89.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace and Kenneth L. Donelson. Literature for Today's Young Adults. 3rd ed. Glenview, Ill. : Scott, Foresman, 1989.
Walter, Virginia A. War and Peace Literature for Children and Young Adults: A Resource Guide to Significant Issues. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1993.
War and Peace in Literature: Prose, Drama, and Poetry which Illuminate the Problem of War. Compiled by Lucy Dougall. Chicago: World Without War Publications, 1982.
York, Lorraine M. "Front Lines: The Fiction of Timothy Findley (Review)." Essays on Canadian Writing 55 (Spring 1995): 140-146. Available online: Canadian Business and Current Affairs.
Link to historical information about World War One
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Link to Young Adult Book Reviews Page
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Updated October 1996