The Enemy

How do we talk to our kids about war? It's tempting to turn to schoolyard analogies, but those comparisons are dishonest-and disrespectful of war victims. Davide Cali's The Enemy: A Book About Peace has the opposite problem: It depicts war's dehumanizing nature so acutely that it may not be suitable for 4- to 8-year-olds. Two lone soldiers crouch in identical trenches, a blank battlefield between them. The one narrating declares the other different from himself in every way: "He is a wild beast. He does not know mercy. I know this because I read it in my manual." Serge Bloch's chilling illustrations show the narrator with a hungry gaze and goofy smile as he regards the gun and manual being handed to him. A scene of fallen civilians and animals, sketched with a childlike hand, is as upsetting as the most explicit war photography. There is some humor here: At one point, the narrator dons "Disguise Number Three—the bush" and crawls across no man's land like a squiggled, ambulating azalea. On the whole, though, this is a sobering, even devastating narrative—for adults. Young children may miss the powerful subtexts but not the palpable desolation the illustrations convey, which may prove too troubling too soon. Overall, an important book for readers over age 8.