When my kids were younger we read a lot of historical fiction. I honestly think it was the most popular genre in our house for quite a few years so I was very interested to see which stories would be included in the Terrible True Tales: First Wold War book by Terry Deary

Before I get onto the actual stories let me give you a quick run down on the book. There are four short stories in this book and each story is based on a true event. After each story the author has included a brief explanation on what true event the story was based on and then he even offers a few ideas on activities that the kids could do to extend the ideas mentioned in the stories.

All four stories are well written and written so that they are appropriate for kids from around 7 and over. So there are no gory details in these stories but they do contain lots of facts about life during the first world war (they are all written from a British perspective). My daughter was always a sensitive reader and I would have been more than happy for her to read these stories.

Okay so briefly what are the four stories?

The first one is The War Game. This story deals with the general life of a foot soldier. What training would have been like, the guns they had and then life in the trenches. Although this could be a heavy topic for younger kids, Terry Deary does keep it light and even included a funny bit about a soldiers teeth flying out his mouth. He also manages to include the very famous Christmas truce in this story.

The second story is The Bomber Balloon. This is set in a village in England where a young girl happens to watch a Zeppelin crash and then helps the locals to arrest the German soldiers. I liked that you got a quick look at life in a village, with blackouts and what the DORA law would have been like. I also liked that the German officers in the story where not made out to be evil, but were just soldiers.

The third story is The Last Flight. This story is written slightly differently, it is a series of letters from a young soldier to his sister and in the letters you read about the soldier as he goes from training to be a normal soldier to ending up as a photographer on one of the British planes. I found this quite an interesting angle as all the stories we have read about the first world war were never written from this angle. He does end up being captured and being a prisoner of war but again the author keep this light and does not paint the German soldiers in a harsh light.

The last story is The Pigeon Spy. I enjoyed this. It centers around how pigeons where used in the war and how they actually ended up saving lives. I liked the fact that this one is written from the angle of the young boy who used to raise pigeons and now is helping to care for them. This story does include a group of soldiers who are surrounded and injured but again there is nothing to gruesome and with the help of the pigeon they are rescued.

All four stories dealt with interesting topics from the first world war and all four where well written and informative while still being age appropriate. I would recommend this for young readers.

If you like the sound of the Terrible True Tales: First World War then you might also be interested in the Terrible True Tales: Second World War book by Terry Deary. This also contains four short stories – The Bike Escape, The Apple Spy, The Barrel Burglary and The Phantom Farm.

If you do have younger kids who enjoy historical fiction then these two might be of interest to you.

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