Why War is Never a Good Idea Review

HarperCollins

This poem about war drops like jagged pieces of glass into your conscience, intensely sharp but, in the right light, shining and beautiful.

Set aside the word "never" in the title. You could make a good case for many wars in history, but we're not concerned with polemics here. Walker makes a character out of War; watchful and insidious, unconcerned and toxic:

Though War is Old
It has not
Become wise
It will not hesitate
To destroy
Things that
Do not
Belong to it
Things very
Much older
Than itself.

Walker, author of The Color Purple, obviously doesn't shy away from a controversy, but don't expect subtlety. The extended metaphor has no place to hide in her spare prose, though it builds its own momentum as idyllic images of families and landscapes sink beneath violence and gore.

Vitale's art drives the point home, literally. Turn the page on a lovely Asian panorama and the paper becomes wrapped around a filthy Jeep wheel with its rusting hubcap. Vibrantly hued renderings of azure skies, sun-dappled fields and teeming jungles channel Henri Rousseau or perhaps Paul Gauguin with their fondness for the primitive, in this case symbolizing the pristine. Brace for these pastoral scenes erupting with smears of toxic-looking goo, rusting nails, or cracked enamel. The effect is both jarring and yet sublime; it's hard not to admire the artistry even in what's meant to be the ugliest pages.

A few references chafe: Walker mentions War seeing oil and gas in the earth, though in the entire history of human conflict, only a tiny fraction involved those commodities. She pulls it all off in the end, however, by admonishing the reader about War's contagious effects on us all.

What you decide to teach a young child about war is, of course, entirely up to you. Walker and Vitale are merely giving you one approach, which, if it doesn't prompt nightmares, should at least inspire numerous questions.