Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers

Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers

BookSnap

 

Rationale

Postcards from No Man’s Land follows two stories in two different timelines.  The first is a story about Jacob who has gone to Europe to commemorate his grandfather on the anniversary of his death.  He died in a battl during World War II and is buried in Amsterdam.  However, Jacob’s journey turns out to have unexpected struggles of both external forces but also internal self-discovery.  The other story follows Geertrui, a young girl who nursed his grandfather during the war.  Geertrui also faces a journey of external strife and self-discovery.

I chose the picture of a single WWII soldier to show, not only the time period and scenario of the work, but also the aloneness of the characters journey. I included a line from the book review from Kirkus Review.  It gives a very brief but compelling synopsis of the story.  The quote from the book was chosen to show the beginning of Geertrui and Jacob’s relationship.  The book that contains this poem, from which Jacob is quoting, becomes very important to his and Geertrui’s budding romance as they hide together.

Related Reads

Related Read Title	Related Read Author	Category	How Related Read Relates to Initial Title	Why You Would Recommend the Related Read
Salt to the Sea	Ruta Sepetys	Historical Fiction	A historical fictional story covering the same military historic time period.	-New York Times  bestseller -Carnegie Medal -WWII fiction told by four characters in four stories, told from their countries perspective
The Boys Who Challenged Hitler	Phillip Hoose	Non-Fiction	Non-fiction story from WWII time period	-A Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Honor Winner -A Kirkus Review Best Book of the Year -A Horn Book, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist starred review -Told from the viewpoint of a teenage male
Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers	Deborah Heiligman	Biography	European history not war related	-Printz Honor Book -YALSA Nonfiction Award Winner -National Book Award Finalist A Kirkus Review, School Library Journal, Booklist, Horn Book and Publisher’s Weekly starred review -One of the main character’s, Jacob Sr, likes culture -This provides an alternative on European history through the lens of culture vs war
A Thief in Time	Cidney Swanson	Science Fiction	Multi-generational family fiction	-Covers many of the same family dynamics -European fiction -Historical time frame

Review

Publishers Weekly: “The implied challenges of the future make the final pages all the more satisfying: it's clear that Jacob can not only cope with ambiguity but can employ it to enlarge himself on the voyage of self-discovery he has so auspiciously begun.”

References

Chambers, A. (1999). Postcards from no man's land. New York, NY: Speak.

Chance, R. (2014) Young adult literature in action: A librarian’s guide. (Second Edition). Denver, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Publisher’s Weekly. (n.d.) Children's Book Review: POSTCARDS FROM NO MAN'S LAND by Aidan Chambers. Retrieved from https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-525-46863-9

Heiligman, D. (2017). Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh brothers. New York: Godwin Books / Henry Holt and Company.

Hoose, P. (2017). Boys who challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill club. Faber And Faber.

Kirkus Review. (n.d.). POSTCARDS FROM NO MANS LAND by Aidan Chambers. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/aidan-chambers/postcards-from-no-mans-land/

Sepetys, R. (2017). Salt to the sea. Follettbound.

Swanson, C. (2016). Thief in time. Williams Press.

Swinnen, S. (n.d.). Ypres [Photograph found in Belgium, Unsplash]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/qwe8TLRnG8k