Good WW2 books for Kids

[PoorFarm]

I've read to my kids since they were small, generally fiction books. To mix things up I recently read them Ticket to Hell Via Dieppe by Robert Prouse (with a little selective editing). It was a huge hit so we went on to read a biography by a member of the 507th 82nd airborne, and now we are reading Ernie's War The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War 2 Dispatches. Mr. Pyle does a good job of portraying in a very human way what the infantry experience at the squad and foxhole level. Even my wife has started listening and occasionally commenting and sometimes I can't read for the kids interrupting with questions. Occasionally, we read about certain characters in his book and our able to pull them up the internet based on the fact that they have been made famous by being mentioned in his column.

 

I would be curious to hear of WW2 related books that the rest of you have read that would appeal to kids.

[doyler]

Band of Brothers comes to mind and Flags of our Fathers(heard the audio book once too)

 

 

I tend to gravitate toward the books written by or about the person.

[plick27]

When my kids were little they really enjoyed these, WWII Saving the Reality by Ken Rendell and The D-Day Experience by Richard Holmes. They’re large format with tons of photos and multiple inserts that can be removed and handled . The inserts are of copies of maps, war related correspondence, photos, propoganda leafets. The other is from the Eyewitness Books series titled World War II.

[USARV72]

All of Pyles books, also find copy of “See here Private Hargrave”.

[Rakkasan187]

These books may be of interest to you.. When I was growing up I enjoyed reading the "We Were There" book series. These were historical novels that came out in the 50's and 60's. These are fictional retellings of actual historic events, they were still fun to read.

 

There were many WW2 titles: We were there art Pearl Harbor, The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Bataan, The Normandy Invasion...

 

But there were also many other historical periods, The Boston Tea Party, Lexington and Concord, Lewis and Clark Expedition, Pony Express...

 

I still have several volumes and even though I am in my mid 50's I pull them out and read them once in a while.. Some good light reading...

 

Anyway.. Just another suggestion.. These are usually available in the kids section in used book stores and you can find some of the m on Ebay, and more than likely on Amazon...

 

Leigh

[Jarhead8007]

I enjoyed "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" when I was in elementary school or early junior high.

[38Driver]

The book that got me hooked as a second grader, back in the mid 60s was part of the Landmark Book series for kids. There are a bunch on WW2 that are a good mix of text and images. Some are written by well known authors as well. Robert Leckie did the one on Iwo and also Korea. Easy to find and relatively inexpensive. I’ve gathered them for my kids and now grand kid. “Great American Fighter Pilots of World War II” by Robert Loomis is the one that hooked me. Still sits on my end table.

 

The other batch were the American Heritage Junior Library collection. Again, a great mix of images and text to grab a kid and make them want to learn more. Not as many WW2, but all kinds of great history. “Airwarrior Against Hitler’s Germany” being the one I found first, but also a great book on the carrier war in WW2: D-Day, Battle of the Bulge and the Desert war.

 

At the book fairs in grade school they always had books from the Ballantine series that was geared towards younger readers also. I’d bet most of the 50 something’s like me had lots of those. Many of them written by well known historians, geared to kids. I still have all the ones I got as a kid. Great references.

[Ray175INF]

Robert Leckie

"Helmet for my pillow" , "Okinawa, the last battle of ww2"

 

Stephen Ambrose

"D-Day June 6, 1944 the climatic battle of world war 2", "Citizen soldiers" and "Band of brothers"

 

Cornelius Ryans

"A bridge too far", "The longest day"

[Ray175INF]

What's great about these books too is they have maps of the battles and photograph sections interspersed through out the chapters and many of them are connected to or are of soldiers, airmen that the author has written about.