Nobody Wants a Nuclear War

School Library Journal

Gr 1-2 Vigna's deft touch is again displayed, this time in addressing children's fears of nuclear war. The opening pages, showing a brother and sister fleeing before the onset of a dark thunderstorm, set the tone of some distant brooding power, outside the control of any child. The two children are giving some thought to the prospect that they may ``never grow up.'' Their mother discovers them in the hideaway that they have created ``just in case,'' and talks to them matter-of-factly. She describes, briefly, the Hiroshima bomb, air-raid drills of the succeeding years, and what can be done by individuals. The children choose to make a banner with a slogan on it and to send a picture of this to the president. Although Vigna acknowledges that the problems of war are outside of any child's ability to directly influence, she encourages children to have an attitude of activism, to a belief that people working together can have some impact on international policy. The simple text is illustrated in soft pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings. This is one of the few books on this topic that takes a ``what can we do here and now?'' approach. Unlikely to generate the controversy that anti-war children's books sometimes do, Vigna's contribution is a welcome addition to the genre. Ruth Semrau, Lovejoy School, McKinney, Tex.