Synopses & Reviews
Battles, protests, standoffs, strikes. We hear about them all the time. On the surface, a battle and a protest don't seem to have much in common, but they're really just two ways of handling a dispute. One uses violence, the other uses signs and picket lines. But both start as a disagreement between two groups of people. Both are conflicts.
Since it's impossible for people to agree on everything all the time, conflicts naturally pop up every day, all over the world. Sometimes they turn into full-blown wars, which can be a lot trickier to understand than the conflicts that pop up in everyday life, but every conflict has some things in common.
Using real world examples, Why Do We Fight? teaches kids to recognize the structures, factors, and complex histories that go into creating conflicts, whether personal or global as well as the similarities between both. They'll be given tools to seek out information, enabling them to make informed opinions while learning to respect that others may form different ones.
From culture clashes and trade disputes to disagreements about how to govern, Why Do We Fight? insists that the key to fulfilling humankind's wish for "world peace" lies in how we choose to deal with conflict and provides a genuine cause for optimism in the face of an at-times frightening world.
Review
"So how can we even start to understand global conflicts and how they get resolved? By breaking them down into their basic parts."
from the book
Review
"...An important source for children expressing an early interest in politics and social justice."
Foreword Reviews, September 1, 2013
Review
IRA Notable Book for a Global Society, 2014
Shortlisted for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award, Juvenile Non-fiction category, 2013
Simple black and yellow graphics help visualize key concepts (a trio of Pac-Man-like circles demonstrate the difference between mediation and arbitration, for example) as Walker gives readers the tools to understand and analyze the kinds of clashes, wars, and disagreements that they regularly hear about in the news.”
Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"...An important source for children expressing an early interest in politics and social justice."
Foreword Reviews, September 1, 2013
About the Author
Niki Walker is curious about whats happening in the world and why, so writing and editing childrens non-fiction books isnt just her profession; its her passion. Shes authored over 20 titles and edited more than 100, including
Off to Class by Susan Hughes. She has contributed to projects for Owlkids, CBC, Oxford University Press, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, and more. She lives in Toronto.