Torn by David Massey

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published July 30th 2013 by Chicken House (first published August 2nd 2012)

 

Witnesses to a mystery on the battlefield, a British medic and an American Navy SEAL confront Afghanistan's fog of war.
In war-torn Afghanistan, a girl walks right into a hail of bullets: Elinor watches it with her own eyes. The young British army medic risks the line of fire to rescue her, only to realize the girl is gone.
To find the missing, mysterious child, Elinor enlists the help of an American Navy SEAL. But in all the confusion, with coalition troops fighting every day to maintain a fragile peace, does Ben have something to hide?
Elinor came to Afghanistan with the hope of changing hearts and minds: What she's about to discover will make her question everything she ever believed about love and war.

A war thriller. A cross-cultural love story with an undercurrent of magic realism. A powerful debut set in modern-day, battle-scarred Afghanistan. This is TORN.

War is something that (sadly enough) every generation is now familiar with.  As I look at my children (the ones in my house and the ones in my classroom), I often wonder how it will impact them and if they will ever understand the impact of those who are fighting for our freedoms. Some of them already get it. They have parents or siblings or other family and friends who have fought in another country and even some who have lost loved ones in a war of some kind. Literature, I have found, is the easiest way to allow them some kind of understanding of war in the past and now with the help of David Massey, a new perspective can be found through the eyes of Elinor.

I absolutely fell in love with this book. The war in Afghanistan is one that is confusing for many and hits close to home for many more. As I grow older, I find that more and more people I know are enlisting (people from my high school and now my students) and I am watching the news trying to understand what is going on. There are a slow trickle of books available to students and everyone else to read that give some insight through fictitious characters as to what the war is like. I have even toyed around with the idea of a book about this very topic and began Torn as a research piece to see the perspective of this author. I certainly gained more than that.

This novel is beautifully written, action packed and opens your eyes to a situation in which we often forget about. The children who are impacted most during these wars. I am lucky enough to have the Scholastic Bookfair at school right now and this book is on it, so I am sending all of my kiddos to it and telling them they won’t regret it. Trent Reedy’s Words in the Dust is up next for me. Once I get on a kick… it is hard to get away from it!

Visit David Massey here and see more about him and his works!!

Happy reading!