STONES IN WATER
By Donna Jo Napoli
Scholastic, 1997
I told my friend Jane, librarian extraordinaire, that I needed another boy book. You know, something meaty that I could sink my teeth into and that would also interest my sons. She came back with STONES IN WATER.
Wow.
This is a powerful book. It is set during World War II, and certainly would catch the attention of my two boys … although I think it is best for slightly older kids. Perhaps ten? Twelve? I won’t read it to my eight-year-olds quite yet. But I will read it to them someday. And I will read it to my daughter, too. And when I do I think all three of them will begin to understand that war is ugly and that people—real people, young people, little boy and little girl people—die in them. This is a hard thing for children to know.
STONES IN WATER is the story of Roberto, an Italian boy, who is cruelly swept into the heart of World War II. There are many, many heartbreaking moments in this book. But there are triumphant ones, too. Like the moment when Roberto, who has run away from a German work camp and is trying desperately to survive another day in the Russian wilderness as he makes his way home, comes across pet canaries in an abandoned village.
“Roberto picked up the heavy bag of birdseed under the cage. He opened the cage door and scattered seeds all around the bottom. He hooked the door so that it stayed open. Then he scattered seeds around the house, on every surface. He filled all the containers he could find with snow and left them in front of the windows where the sun might melt them. He and the boy went outside. “Good luck,” he called back into the room. Then he closed the front door to the house tight behind them.”
Wow.
Don’t miss this one. Just don’t.