The Day War Came

by Nicola Davies, Rebecca Cobb (Illustrator)

Overview

A moving, poetic narrative and child-friendly illustrations follow the heartbreaking, ultimately hopeful journey of a little girl who is forced to become a refugee.

The day war came there were flowers on the windowsill and my father sang my baby brother back to sleep.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536201734
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	340,349
Product dimensions:	11.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Nicola Davies is a zoologist and award-winning author whose numerous books for children include King of the Sky, illustrated by Laura Carlin; Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes, illustrated by Emily Sutton; and many others. She lives in Wales.

Rebecca Cobb has illustrated several picture books, including The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson. She has been short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal twice. She lives in England.

Help Refugees is a grassroots project that supports more than seventy projects benefitting refugees worldwide. www.helprefugees.org

Editorial Reviews

Davies's powerful words are sensitively represented by Cobb in simple child-centered illustrations, making this an accessible book for those young readers ready to engage with this difficult topic.

The New York Times Book Review - Monica Edinger

07/23/2018
Gentle, childlike drawings by Cobb (There’s an Owl in My Town) help soften the blows in this story by Davies (King of the Sky), published in association with Help Refugees, about a girl in a country at war. War comes one day when she’s at school—not in the morning, she explains, when her class is learning about volcanoes and tadpoles, but in the afternoon, “just after lunch.” The juxtaposition of the girl’s routine and the catastrophic events heightens the tragedy. The war, portrayed as a big ashy cloud, destroys her home and family: “War took everything./ War took everyone.” When she finds her way to another country in a stream of refugees, a schoolteacher refuses her a place in class, and she realizes that “war had gotten here, too.” She is slumped in a dark corner when a boy opens the door and offers her a chair: “My friends have brought theirs, too, so all the children here can come to school.” Though Davies suggests that everyone has to lend a hand to push hate away, sensitive readers may be too distressed by all that has occurred to take in the children’s generous impulse. Ages 6–9. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Davies’s powerful words are sensitively represented by Cobb in simple child-centered illustrations, making this an accessible book for those young readers ready to engage with this difficult topic.
—The New York Times Book Review

This gracefully written poem conveys the extensive amount of suffering that war brings...An absolutely beautiful story that penetrates the heart and seeds hope when there is little of it.
—Booklist (starred review)

Sketchy, child-friendly illustrations and poetic prose do not shy away from the realities of war but also inject a note of hope in this powerful picture book...A sensitive and finely tuned message about the cost of war and its impact on children without resorting to graphic violence and pessimism.
—School Library Journal

This first-person poem’s words are moving...this is a strong statement on the impact of refugee crises upon children.
—Booklist

Gentle, childlike drawings by Cobb (There’s an Owl in My Town) help soften the blows in this story by Davies (King of the Sky), published in association with Help Refugees, about a girl in a country at war.
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

★ 2018-05-23
This gracefully written poem conveys the extensive amount of suffering that war brings.A girl with brown skin and black hair who lives in a city enjoys her day, spending the morning with her family, then learning about volcanoes and drawing a bird at school. Then war suddenly erupts: "I can't say the words that tell you / about the blackened hole / that had been my home. / All I can say is this: / War took everything. / War took everyone." The child runs, walks in the cold, rides on packed trucks and in a boat that nearly sinks, but the war follows her: "It was underneath my skin…. / It was in the way that people didn't smile, and turned away." She finds a school where children are learning about volcanoes and drawing birds, but when she goes inside, the teacher says there is no chair for her. In an unexpected turn of events, the children of the school redraw the smile on the girl's face and push back the war, one step at a time. Cobb's muted, deceptively childlike illustrations match the poem's understatement. An early spread of the gray, smoky chaos that destroys the girl's world is echoed in a late spread as she huddles alone in an unwelcoming place. Both an afterword by the author and the illustrations suggest that the protagonist may be from Syria or Iraq and sought refuge in the U.K., but the story is, alas, more broadly universal. An absolutely beautiful story that penetrates the heart and seeds hope when there is little of it. (Picture book. 6-12)

Kirkus Reviews

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