Remembrance Day - Alex Baugh from The Children’s War

Alex Baugh runs The Children's War blog which holds an extensive collection of books about children and teenagers and Word War II. We're delighted that Alex has joined us (all the way from New York) for a special Remembrance Day guest post.

 

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“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure”

- Abraham Lincoln

 

In 1918, on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, the Armistice ending World War I, the war to end all wars, was signed between the Allies and Germany. The date became a nation holiday called Armistice Day, set aside so that nations to remember and honor those who lost their lives on the battlefields and in the trenches.

Sadly, World War I wasn’t the war to end all wars and twenty-one years later, the world was at it again. Six years later, World War II finally ended. In the United States, Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day, a day to honor all veterans of the armed services, the fallen as well as those who are still living, and those who are still serving. In the British Commonwealth nations, Armistice Day was changed to Remembrance Day, a day honor those who fell in battle in all wars.

Here are some of my favorite books for helping young people understand the meaning and importance of Veterans’ Day and Remembrance Day:

 

The Unknown Soldier by Linda Granfield

The Poppy Lady: Moina Belle Michael and Her Tribute to Veterans by Barbara Elizabeth Walsh, illustrated by Layne Johnson

Veterans Day by Marlene Targ Brill, illustrated by Qi Z Wang

Remembrance Day by Molly Aloian

Remembrance Day by Jane Bingham

 

And here are some of my favorite stories about the men, women and even animal soldiers:

World War I Stories:

 

 

War Game: Village Green to No-Man’s Land by Michael Foreman

Truce: the Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting by Jim Murphy

Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon

And the Soldiers Sang by J. Patrick Lewis

The Christmas Truce by Carol Ann Duffy

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

Soldier’s Game by James Kilgore

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

 

World II Stories:

 

 

A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo

The Diary of a World War II Pilot by Dennis Hamley

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins, a World War II Soldier by Walter Dean Myers

Coming in to Land by Dennis Hamley

Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchas

Robert Moran, Private by Ken Catran

Mare’s War by Tanita Davis

Prisoner of Dieppe: World War II by Hugh Brewster

Behind Enemy Lines: World War II by Carol Matas

Fly Boy by Eric Walters

 

- by Alex Baugh, The Children's War