Slap Your Sides

Rating:
Summary: What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Review: In light of the recent events and our reaction to the terror, this book asks essential questions that I'm not sure we gave ourselves time to ask. How often we tell our children/students, "Use your words," implying "not your fists" and yet after 9/11 did we follow our own advice? Read Slap Your Sides with your children. Talk about the issues of courage, pacifism and the options we have when our government acts in opposition to our conscience. Courage does not always mean going along with the crowd and patriotism comes in many forms and with many different visible outcomes. W.W.II was a good setting for this story and the Quaker beliefs an appropriate frame but these issues are vital today more than ever. I'm so glad I found this book and hope to share it with many others. Thank you ME Kerr!

Rating:
Summary: A book about World War II in eastern United States.
Review: Kerr took an interesting approach to the war by looking at Quakers and those with religions that oppose war and fighting. This was a thought provoking novel, but Kerr tried too hard--she tackles too many issues at once, and the characters lose their believability. For example, Jubal, the main character, is too young for the draft, so he spends his time wrestling with remaining a pacifist or joining as a non-combatant when he's old enough. But Jubal's feelings are never apparent (you could chalk this up to he's confused himself, so the readers should be too), and he rarely lets the reader know his inner thoughts--he's too busy narrating. He also has a little fling with a girl in town that just fell short of reality. This novel could, however, be a springboard to studying other issues, such as Quakers and war or insane assylums during the 1940s. Overall it was a disappointment--Kerr should have expanded or shortened her story to keep her characters developed.