Slap Your Sides

by M.E. Kerr

Book Overview

World War II is raging in Europe, but back home in Sweet Creek, Pennsylvania, Bud Shoemaker, a Quaker and a pacifist, has taken a oneman stand against the fight by declaring himself a conscientious... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064472744
• ISBN13: 9780064472746
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: HarperTrophy
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.2" x 6.9"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

I enjoyed SLAP YOUR SIDES.

There have been many tributes to the veterans of World War II but, as with any story, there are other points of views waiting to told. Jubal Shoemaker is thirteen years old when his older brother Bud, a strict Quaker, is called to serve in the war. But Bud is a pacifist and does not feel he can join the service and remain true to his moral purpose in life. Instead of joining up like so many others his age, Bud decides to become a conscientious objector and serve in the Civilian Public Service. This action puts him at odds with nearly all of his town. It even sets him against some members of his own family. "Conchies" (what conscientious objectors were called) are not respected during times of war and soon the Shoemaker's are subjected to harassment due to Bud's decision. Signs reading "Your son is a slacker" or "Your Boy's Yellow" appear wherever the Shoemakers go.Jubal is a normal thirteen-year-old who just wants his peers at school and in his town to like and respect him --- especially Daria, a pretty girl with an older soldier boyfriend and brothers in the army. Daria cannot bring herself to understand Bud's stand, and despite her friendship with Jubal she strikes out against his brother. Yet, somehow the two manage to remain friends even as the town turns its back on the Shoemakers. The stress of standing firm with Bud takes its toll on the whole family, especially since a local radio host keeps the controversy pot simmering with his anti-Conchie broadcasts. It doesn't help that he's Daria's father.SLAP YOUR SIDES is a very difficult book to read at times. Kerr does a superb job of recreating the atmosphere of the war years for the reader. This is in part due to our being used to thinking of that time as a clear cut era without the confusing shades of gray while Kerr points out that that kind of clarity never really existed. Kerr asks us to question which is the more moral standpoint and whether doing something wrong can ever be right. I enjoyed SLAP YOUR SIDES because the characters and their relationships with each other never fail to feel truthful. This is not a book to occupy a rainy afternoon, it's a book for life. --- (...)

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

In light of the recent events and our reaction to the terror, this book asks essential questions that I'm not sure we gave ourselves time to ask. How often we tell our children/students, "Use your words," implying "not your fists" and yet after 9/11 did we follow our own advice? Read Slap Your Sides with your children. Talk about the issues of courage, pacifism and the options we have when our government acts in opposition to our conscience. Courage does not always mean going along with the crowd and patriotism comes in many forms and with many different visible outcomes. W.W.II was a good setting for this story and the Quaker beliefs an appropriate frame but these issues are vital today more than ever. I'm so glad I found this book and hope to share it with many others. Thank you ME Kerr!