Get It Now The Wall Conceptualized By Eve Bunting Accessible Via Text

summary "A boy and his father come from faar away to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and find the name of the boy's grandfather, who was killed in the conflict.
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This story gives students an idea of what the wall is like in Washington DC and the many visitors that it attracts each year, It could also be a good book to discuss the Vietnam War and how many lives it affected, When researching Eve Bunting, she said that this was one of her favorite books, A young boy observes the Vietnam War Memorial with his father looking for the name of his father who died in the war, Beautiful language and a striking presentation of the wall and the various reactions it elicits from visitors,

A super picture book to introduce reverence for war veterans and those we have lost to war, Bunting's language is poetic and touching,


"Ladder with":

Eli the Good by Silas House
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

If you can find a copy of Kate Larken's CD, MUDDY WATERS, link to the song "The Wall" a beautiful, beautiful song that would work nicely with this title.
I was going through my picture books this morning trying to get them a little organized, and I came across The Wall, which I had completely forgotten that I owned.
I wish I remembered it so for Memorial Day, but I didn't so I thought I would write about it today,

On a cool, breezy day, a young boy and his father visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, The boys notices that the wall long long, shiny and shaped like a V, The names on the wall are in straight lines, the "letters march side by side, like rows of soldier, "

But this isn't just a sightseeing visit, The boy and his father are looking for the boy's grandfather, As they search for his name, the boy sees different people approach the way a wounded veteran, an elderly couple, a group of school girls and the different mementos left by friends and family members who are still mourning the loss of the sons, brother, fathers, grandfathers Meanwhile, the boys father searches for the name of the father he lost when he was the age his son is now.


Finally, there it is George Munoz, Son and father make a rubbing of his names, then quietly stand in front of it together, no doubt thinking about what a loss they have suffered,

Because, besides honoring the veterans who lost their lives in the Vietnam War, the wall also reminds us of what a profound loss to family and friends even a single life can be.
And I think Eve Bunting has really captured that so well in this book, as well as what a truly emotional experience visiting the Wall can be, regardless of your feelings about the Vietnam War.


Ronald Himler's quiet impressionistic styled watercolor illustrations and his palette of background grays and semicolorful foreground figures of visitors and mementos really reflect the somber mood of visiting such a meaningful visit.


I created this blog because I was interested in the impact war has on children effected by it and I think the little boy's last words really epitomize that impact:

"But I'd rather my grandpa here, taking me to the river, telling me to button my jacket because it's cold.

I'd rather have him here, "

This book is recommended for readers age
This book was purchased for my personal library

This review was originally posted on sitelinkThe Children's War I can still remember having a teacher read this book to me when I was young.
A wonderful book to read to students to discuss the loss that comes with war, Reading Level
This is one of my topfavorite picture books, I read it every year in my classroom when we talk about Veterans Day, This book is about a father and son who visit the Vietnam Memorial to make a rubbing of the boy's grandfathers name, While they are there they have an important discussion about war, and the purpose of the Vietnam Memorial, It is an emotionally charged book, but I love how honest and open with his emotions the father is with his son, I highly recommend this book in any classroom, because of the serious theme and message it can work for a variety of grade levels despite the primary elementary reading level.
Lovely illustrations enhance the quiet, contemplative but ohsoverysad text, This book explores what it might feel like to be a small boy whose grandfather is only a name etched in very precise "better than I can do" printing on a long black wall.
Gorgeous imagery in the text, especially where the boy notes that he and his dad are reflected in the black mirrorlike surface of the wall, It made me cry, for that little boy and for all the rest of us, Summary: One day a boy and his father come to the wall to find his grandfathers name because the wall has the names who were killed in the Vietnam war.
When they are finding, many different people come to here to visit, People do not forget these soldiers,
impression/opinion: I like this story because this story let the readers know we should not forget these soldiers who died in the war, Because they used their life to exchange world peace, Not sad, because people still remember these heroes, I like the teacher take her students to visit this wall, and people put the flowers under the well, I think if people still remember these heroes, then they never leave us, Also, this story can let the students to know a war is cruel because wars can kill a lot of people,
color: Inth opening, the boy see an old soldier who lost his legs in Vietnam war, This soldier wear green clothing, The green clothing looks like an army uniform, so this is a good hint for this old mans identity, Also, the pictures use a lot of yellow, brown, and light gray to show the world is peace and nice, The light yellow is a good color to show warmth, Thank for these soldiers, they used their life to make todays peace,
Salience: The salience is the boys red clothing, This is the only red color because his is the main character, so the red clothing can help the readers keep their eyes on this boy,
Character: This main character is the boy because the reader only use the boys ears and eyes to get the information, The talking only happening with boy and others, The readers cannot know talking between others and others, The most thing is happening with the boy, For example, the boy talk with the old soldier, The boy never see the Vietnam war, but he follows with his father to learn what the Vietnam war, and he sees many people remember these soldiers, so he learns these soldiers used their life to exchange world peace.

POV: This is first person, For example, “Where is Grandpas name” I ask, This is story for the kids, so the writer use a young boy and first person to write this story can help the young kids have same feeling with the character.
For kids stories, the reader need to use kids eyes to look the world because the kids will feel it is close with them,
This is a historical fiction, because it has some parts can help the reader go back to that time, and learn what the Vietnam war is, Also, Vietnam war was truly happened,
A young boy and his father visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, In Washington, DC, there is a wall, a testimony to the large number of people who died, or who were never found in their United States military served in Vietnam.
Those men and women, and those missing in action have their name on a panel of the wall, listed in the year they died or were missing,

This is a story of a father who took his child to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, When they find his name, they take a piece of paper and rub the name onto the paper, This is also a journey of people they see at the wall who are crying, or like them, looking for the name of the person who died in that country in a war that so many thought was senseless.


No matter what the personal thoughts or feelings about this war, the wall reminds us that these people deserve to be honored, The wall is a healing place where many leave trinkets at the bottom of the panel listing the name of the loved one,

Thus, the wall was needed, It helped to heal a nation in grief, Stark in its presentation, the shiny black panels are different that a statue, The names give honor to those who did not make it home alive,

The teacher who brought her class that day told the class members that this was a wall for "all of us, " This book can be viewed as historical realism because of the real life events that take place from the past in the story,

An example is how the story begins with this little boy and his father walking along side this endlesslooking wall, There they see a veteran without its two bottom limbs and an old couple engaging in brief grief, The child starts to walk closer to the wall and sees objects such as flowers and flags and framed pictures, Then the dad starts to engage in some grief as well because of the death that has occurred, How his father had died around the same age as well, This to me says historical fiction because of the real life stories these realism because nothing about it is fake or fiction, it is all real, a real story that many families could could probably relate to.


My impression of this book was expected, Just by the title I could imagine that it would be a sad book with a serious theme, The pictures took me by surprise because of all the different angles the illustrations would take, From looking at a close up of the boy touching the stones, to a far away shot of him and his father walking away,

The colors in this book are very detailed, The clouds are not just different shades of blue, they are also mixed with white, and gray, This makes the clouds seem as if it just rained, The boy even describes the clouds as “dark flying clouds”,
Another visual element would be the water color technique used to produce and depict the story, This makes the pictures seem like a flash back and also goes very well with the serious vibe the theme has, I never knew my Uncle Clip, my father's youngest brother, who died eight years before I was born, But although it would probably be an overstatement to say I grew up in his shadow, there is no denying that he was a presence in my childhood home.
His picture a black and white photograph of a handsome young man, laughing, with the sun in his face hung, framed, on my father's study wall, Beneath it, also in a frame, was an oblong piece of paper, with a pencil rubbing of his name, Long before I understood the significance of these two images, or their relationship to one another, long before I heard Uncle Clip's story, and my father's, I instinctively recognized this was a sacred space.
We all of us, consciously or not, know what a shrine looks like,

I used to find it terrifying that Uncle Clip looked so much like my father, when he was young, almost as if the image on the wall were of my father, almost as if they might still, despite the passage of time, switch places, my father disappearing into that photograph.
My older sisters, thinking perhaps, to frighten me briefly, and probably never dreaming that I would believe them for so long, once told me that the old tarp in our attic was actually the body bag in which Uncle Clip had been shipped home, from faroff Southeast Asia.
As bizarre, grotesque and patently absurd as such an idea might seem now, it did not come as a surprise to me then, and I believed it for years.
Just as Uncle Clip's photograph was with us, in the house, so too, I often felt, was his spirit why not his body bag It seemed frightening and strange, but then, so too did the war.


I can't remember when I first heard the story perhaps all at once, perhaps in bits, as I questioned my parents of my father's idealistic young brother: of his belief in the justness of the American cause in Vietnam, his belief that he would be fighting for democracy, and to protect the threatened South Vietnamese of his determination to serve something greater than himself, and his desire to do his duty to the country he loved of his enlistment in the army, despite the disapproval of his family, who all believed the war to be wrong of his deployment to Vietnam, and the letter he wrote home, telling his mother my grandmother that the American people had been deceived, and that nothing was as he had expected it to be and finally, of his death, on Good Friday,.
I can't remember when I learned that it was my father, and my Great Uncle Bob, who identified his returning body, because my grandparents were so heartbroken that they couldn't bear to do it or when I discovered that there was such a thing as the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial the Wall from which the rubbing of Uncle Clip's name my grandfather's name, too was obtained, and to which my grandmother could never bring herself to go.


Suffice it to say that, long before I ever knew it existed, the Wall was a part of my life, and of the life of my family.
It has a presence amongst us, and it casts a shadow, It belongs to us, like it belongs to so many other Americans, in a way that few public monuments do, Naturally, walking past the Veteran's Day display, in the children's room of my local public library this past weekend, I was arrested by the sight of this book, sitting on the shelf arrested by that cover image, of father and son at the Wall.
Almost against my will, not sure I really wanted to read it at all, I checked it out, and this morning, reluctantly, I put it in my bag, to be read on my commute.
What would Eve Bunting have to say, I wondered, about the Wall Would she understand its unique power and significance Would she take an ideological position on the Vietnam War Would I hate her book Love it Be indifferent

I loved it, and am so glad I gave it a chance! The Wall is a beautiful story, told in a gentle and contemplative way, of a father and his young son visiting the memorial, to find the name of the father's father and the son's grandfather, who died in Vietnam.
Together, they search for his name, encountering others who have also come to visit the Wall: a grieving older couple, a veteran amputee in a wheelchair, a group of schoolgirls with flags, and most poignant of all a grandfather with his grandson.
This last, in particular, had me tearing up, and was a deeply moving reminder of the loss experienced by the young boy, who would never know his own grandfather.


Like the Wall itself, Bunting concentrates on the grief attendant on losing a loved one in war, rather than on the politics of the war itself.
This allows the reader to come to their own conclusions although the young boy's declaration, at the end of the book, that as proud as he is of his grandfather's service to country, he would rather have had the chance to get to know him can be read as a commentary of sorts, I suppose.
The illustrations, done in somber watercolor by Ronald Himler who has also collaborated with Bunting on titles such as sitelinkFly Away Home and sitelinkA Day's Work perfectly capture the emotional intensity of each scene, whether it be the one in which the young boy's father prays, beside the wall, or that in which the elderly couple embrace one another.


Given the way in which this book perfectly captures one of the most important aspects of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial that it manages to honor the fallen, without glorifying the war I was more than a little incensed to read that one of my fellow reviewers considers it "patriotic pornography.
" I guess Bunting wasn't as explicitly condemnatory as this person could have wished, In addition to being a gross misreading of the story, and one of the most appallingly heartless things I have read of late, it seems to me that this fellow reviewer's comments point to a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Wall is, to so many of us.


Just as I can't remember when and where I first learned the details of Uncle Clip's story, I can't remember when I learned my father's: that he was involved, as a young seminarian and minister, in the Civil Rights and antiWar movements.
That he had been in the midst of his first pastorate, at a church in Kansas, when Uncle Clip died, and had been speaking out, from the pulpit, against the Vietnam War.
That he had been labeled a "communist" by some nowadays I expect it would be "terrorist", although the career Army men in his congregation thanked him, privately, for speaking the truth that they could not.
Most of all, although I cannot remember when or how I learned it, that, whatever my father's view of the war, he loved his brother with all his heart, and knew that his actions, in volunteering, came from a noble and honorable impulse, and a selfless desire to serve.
That it wasn't necessary to agree with a man's decisions, or his views, to see the goodness and nobility in him, and to honor that,

I don't think, really, I could have put all that into words, as a child, or even a younger adult, But it was with a deep sense of recognition that I first read, a few years back, On the Slain Collegians, one of Herman Melville's Civil War poems, in which he wrote:

"Woe for the homes of the North,
And woe for the seats of the South:
All who felt life's spring in prime,
And were swept by the wind of their place and time
All lavish hearts, on whichever side,
Of birth urbane or courage high,
Armed them for the stirring wars
Armed themsome to die.
"

And then, later:

"Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong
So be it but they both were young
Each grape to his cluster clung,
All their elegies are sung.
"

That's how I think of my Uncle Clip: as an idealistic young man who was "swept by the wind of his place and time," a young man one amongst many who paid a terrible price for the misguided ambitions of the powerful.
I don't need to agree with the war and I don't to believe he was a good man, and to mourn his death, And The Wall whether we're speaking of this book, or of The Wall itself doesn't require me to, It doesn't require anything of me, of us, politically, What it does do is provide a space, a unique and powerful space, in which we all, regardless of our views, can mourn our loved ones, and honor the dead.
Oh Maya Lin! You did a good, good thing, and a profoundly important service to your country, when you designed that wall!

Today, as I write this review, it is Veteran's Day.
My father, who isn't in the best of health, has been speaking recently of seeing the Wall, one last time, before he dies, I think that I will look into going down to D, C. , this spring. We'll go to the Wall, my father and I, like the two in this book, and we'll search for the name of that laughing young man, amongst the many thousands of his comrades.
My father will pray for the dead, and that his brother's soul be at peace, And I I will sing my uncle's elegy, With all my heart, will I sing it, .