ANZAC Heroes product reviews

Not only did the title grab me but the cover illustration dragged me in. This is a lovely hard covered book that tells the stories of 30 courageous Anzacs for both NZ and Australia that fought in Both WWI and WWII. I am always drawn to books about the war which tells the stories of the individuals and what they faced. This book really did live up to my expectations, with each person's story told over a two page spread.

This book is really well set out with symbols and abbreviations that appear in the book clearly explained within the first few pages. The book has been split into the two different wars with a map and timeline at the beginning of each section which explains the situation that these amazing men and women faced.
I liked the way that very quickly by looking at symbols of each person we could find out which country they were from and what service they fought with. They had a picture of the medals which if you wanted could find out what they were in the medal table at the back. The story was told in a very clear but clever way to show feeling and depth and extra information was given where needed to explain extra things in more depth.

This book is definitely going to get plenty of use in our house over many years as I feel it is a book that children can grow into. My 4 year old son loves anything war related and really takes in the information. We have looked and read this book in so many ways. The first time was just looking at what country and service each was from, next was looking at the medals and deciding who got the same ones. We have now gone on to read some of the stories together (he is obsessed at the moment with the medics). I am guessing as the years go on we will read more and more of these stories together and the questions will be asked about those things he doesn't understand. It is very well written and set out with context page, index, bibliography, glossary which I am guessing will add another step of learning when the time comes.

The ANZAC Heroes book is essential in any New Zealand or Australian school library. It is a great book that, as the title suggests, tells of some of the brave men and women that fought in the two world wars. There is a balance between the three armed forces and includes medics as well as intelligence. I found the book was very well set out with lists of abbreviations, maps, timelines, as well as a medal chart and glossary. This book was designed for children nine years and over who will have varying levels of knowledge of the ANZACs and these reference pages would be great for them.

As a New Zealander whose late grandfathers both fought in WWII I have a little more understanding of the history than most children of today but I really enjoyed learning about the individuals. The reference pages were also good for filling in the gaps for me and helping to answer the questions my daughters (7.5 and 6 years old) had while I was reading to them. Since there were two pages (including lots of illustrations) for each of the heroes it was really great to read to the children. They were able to look at the contents page and the symbols next to each name and chose who we were going to read about. They really liked the idea of finding out about real life spies.

The book was really well written so that it didn't go into the violent side war. I also believe that if a German or Japanese person was to read this today they would not be offended by the way their ancestors are portrayed. It was more like a sports match with two opposing sides. I will be lending this book to my daughters's school so the teachers can use it as we approach ANZAC Day commemorations.