Illustration from Deirdre Gill’s Outside
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Illustration from John Hendrix’s
Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Today over at
Kirkus, I write about some good things that happened in 2014 in the realm of picture books. That link is
here.
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Since last week I chatted with John Hendrix (here) about Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914 (Abrams, October 2014), I’ve got some art from the book today. I also wrote last week about some snow books (here), so I’ve also got some art from Deirdre Gill’s Outside (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 2014).
Enjoy the art, and until Sunday …
From Deirdre Gill’s Outside:
“Inside, a boy has nothing to do.”
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“… and bigger …”
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From John Hendrix’s Shooting at the Stars:
The Christmas Truce of 1914:
The book’s first spread, which accompanies the introduction
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“… After the sun went down, we decided to chance a fire outside the bunker, but when we stepped outdoors we heard the sounds of singing! …”
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“Not only were they singing as loud as they could—it sounded like ‘Silent Night’—but all along their line, tiny Christmas trees lit with candles and lanterns had appeared. Several of our boys suggested taking shots at the trees, but most of us
were just glad the Germans weren’t busy trying to shoot us.
We all wondered where they got all those little trees!”
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“… One of their officers poked his head up, saw the jam,
and then stood right up, waving at us! …”
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“We all met along a small ditch in the center of No Man’s Land. The first thing we did was bury our fellow soldiers who had been killed. They were everywhere at our feet.
It took some time to finish the grim task. …”
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“I can hardly describe to you what it was like here. We were talking with men we were trying to kill just the day before! A few of the lads had brought pocket cameras from home, so they took pictures together. I traded buttons off of my field coat with a German soldier named Karl for his belt buckle.”
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“There was also much trading of biscuits and puddings — we had our fill. There were two Germans in such a good mood they started kicking around an old biscuit tin like a football, using two battered tree stumps as a goal. Karl said to me,
‘Why can’t we just go home — and have peace?'”
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“We spent most of the afternoon out there. It was such a beautiful day. As the evening came, we made our way back to the trenches. Many returned with souvenirs like I did. Everyone was jealous of Bruce Coy, who traded his helmet for a German one with a pointy top — they call them “Pickelhaubes.” We sat up on the edge of our trench and laughed together. It felt like I was back at school.”
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OUTSIDE. Copyright © 2014 by Deirdre Gill. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.
SHOOTING AT THE STARS: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914. Copyright © 2014 by John Hendrix. Published by Abrams Books, New York. Illustrations reproduced by permission of John Hendrix.
January 2nd, 2015 by jules
