Young Adult - Mature Readers

NZ Writer
Diana Menefy

1915 Wounds of War

Scholastic 2015   $19.95pb  293pp

ISBN 978 1 7754 3274 6

Themes: ANZACs/ Egypt 1914-1918/ Hospital ships/ Nurses in wartime/ NZ Army Nursing Service/ World War 1914-1918

Two young cousins (aged I guess in their early 20s) leave New Zealand and go off to serve as nursing sisters in the First World War. Life in rural New Zealand, hard as it was at times, was not really sufficient preparation for the shocking sights and incidents they were to encounter - the wounds in the title play a big part in the story. I did find the cursive script which is used for the letters between the cousins a bit hard to read sometimes but it does give a feeling of authenticity and younger eyes may enjoy it.

This is the second of the planned series of books from Scholastic covering the First World War. We have already had 1914  Riding into War by Susan Brocker – the stories of horses in the war. Search on this Blog. There are three more books to come by David Hair, Brian Falkner and Des Hunt – ending in 1918.

Wounds of War will be launched at the Whangarei Museum State Highway 14, Maunu on Friday 17 April 2015 from 5.30-7.30pm.   RSVP is essential, so if you are going please let Diana know by 10 April 2015. She can be contacted through northlandauthors@gmail.com.

Year 10 up/ Age 14 up