The Wall

The Wall, written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Richard Himler, is a story about a father and son who go to Washington D.C. to visit the Vietnam Veterans' memorial. The father and son are looking for the son's Grandfather's name, but trying to find the name among the hundreds of names lined up on the wall proves to be an overwhelming task. The Vietnam War is a definite challenge to talk about with children, especially considering how none of the Americans at home understood the deception and mind tricks that the American Soldiers based their decisions on. I know that I have always said that the best way to talk to kids about war is to be direct, but after talking so heavily about World War II, it seems that the results of Vietnam is more important, but that may be because that is what the government wishes the country to focus on, because of America's defeat. It might be interesting to see the kids opinions on Vietnam after look at World War II; will they see this war as unnecessary? will they create any connections to the war in Iraq? the topic of war is very dense, and deserves as much class discussion as the class deems as necessary. It's part of our humanity, and we need to learn our children to learn what's at stake with this kind of fighting.