The book In Flanders Fields is a heart rending story of a young, lonesome soldier, who on Christmas morning, when the guns have stopped firing, spots a bird trapped in some barbed wire. He looks at it for awhile and then slowly returns back to his camp, where he finds a Christmas present awaiting him. Soon after he has found his present, he walks back to his place on the firing line. He looks and sees the robin still trapped. he thinks he will be able to save the robin and he goes out to achieve this. He walks straight into the enemies area and the enemy gets ready to shoot but stops when they find out what is happening. He frees the bird and slowly walks back to camp. In the distance he can hear the enemy camp singing the Christmas carol ‘Silent Night’.
This is a beautifully illustrated book and I think the illustrator has done a fabulous job. Most of the pictures are in grey muted colour with a bit of white and brown mixed in, but when the Robin enters the story the colour changes, but only for the robin. The pictures explain what happens in the story very well and I think that they emphasise the story. The illustrator has cleverly added feeling to the story.
I think this book has a lot of sensitivity about it and it helps explain a bit about what life was like in the war. I thin that anyone who steps into any enemy area would have to be pretty brave and this is what is noted in the story.
In the end this story also shows that war is futile, as the soldiers in this book realised.
