Shooting the Moon

I'm slowly working on reading children's books so that I can decide on what I want to have in the classroom I will someday be teaching. The most recent one is called Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell. The story is set during the Vietnam "Conflict". The main character Jamie (12 year old) is excited because her brother has enlisted and is sent off to be a medic in the war. Over time she comes to learn that war isn't as exciting as she and her brother imagined. Instead of writing her letters her brother photographs his experiences to her. He never writes her a single word.

This was a very good book. But I worry that if I had it in my classroom it may upset or depress student's who have family in our current conflict, but it might also give them hope. I think it would depend on the maturity level of the student. 

I was surprised about this book. It was given to me by one of my students when I was student teaching. It wasn't something I'd have thought he would read. It was his favorite book at the time. I must have seen him carrying that book around and rereading it throughout most of my time in his classroom. He had his mother buy me a copy from the book fair. It was very sweet of him. I hadn't realized that I'd made that much of an impression on him, or that he was that selfless. He definitely made me reassess my estimation of him.