Canadian and American children tell what life is like when a member of their family goes off to the Iraqi or Afghanistan war, discussing the things they do to keep in touch and the significant changes in their lives that result from the separation.

Tomas Young’s War is the tragic yet life affirming story of a paralyzed Iraq War veteran who spent his last ten years battling heroically with his injuries, while courageously speaking against America's wars. Based on hours of interviews with Young and those close to him, the book puts the reader alongside Young as he struggles with life as a paralyzed veteran, suffering frustration and humiliation as he attempts to reenter society and resume as normal an existence as possible. It shows his fight to balance his precarious health with his drive to speak out for veterans care and against the war, and the impact his catastrophic injuries had on his family and his relationships. This emotional and powerful book sheds light on many crucial but often overlooked issues such as veterans’ care, public attitudes toward the disabled, medical marijuana, and the terminally ill. Tomas Young’s War shares everything, as unflinchingly honest as Tomas himself: the depression, the pain, the love, and laughter . . . the life of this man whose world was turned upside down by an Iraqi bullet more than ten years ago. Throughout, it serves as a powerful testament to the true cost of war.

Collecting the nationally-recognized poems of Victoria Kelly, When the Men Go Off to War captures the hopes, anxieties, and intimacies of the military spouse during a time of war. Written over the course of her husband’s deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, these haunting poems span vast geographical distances and generations, moving between the literal and the fanciful to find community in the midst of isolation. Kelly blends lyric and narrative elements to evoke themes of loneliness and human fragility with keen insight. But ultimately, When the Men Go Off to War is a heartrending ode to enduring romance and the reclamation of a marriage tested by loss and separation.

This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today). When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. “A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly

Chronicles the stories of Columbian children who have lost parents, homes, schools, and any hope of day-to-day security, yet work for change and face the future with the confidence that their efforts will make a difference.

Ages 7-14.

A vivid memoir of the conflict’s early years combined with “an insightful review of our problems in Iraq” (Publishers Weekly). Winner of The Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award. Shortly after the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the war in Iraq became the most confusing in US history, the high command not knowing who to fight, who was attacking coalition troops, and who among the different Iraqi groups were fighting each other. Yet there were a few astute officers like Lt. Col. Christopher Hughes, commanding the 2nd Battalion of the 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, who sensed the complexity of the task from the beginning. In War on Two Fronts, Lt. Col. Hughes writes movingly of his “no-slack” battalion at war in Iraq. The war got off to a bang for Hughes when his brigade command tent was fragged, leaving him briefly in charge of the brigade. Amid the nighttime confusion of fourteen casualties, a nearby Patriot missile blasted off, panicking nearly everyone while mistakenly bringing down a British Tornado fighter-bomber. As Hughes’ battalion forged into Iraq, they successfully liberated the city of Najaf, securing the safety of Grand Ayatollah Sistani and the Mosque of Ali while showing an acute cultural awareness that caught the world’s attention. It was a feat that landed Hughes within the pages of Time, Newsweek, and other publications. The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne then implemented creative programs in the initial postwar occupation, including harvesting the national wheat and barley crops while combating nearly invisible insurgents. Conscious that an army battalion is a community of some seven-hundred-plus households, and that when a unit goes off to war, the families are intimately connected in our internet age, Hughes makes clear the strength of those connections and how morale is best supported at both ends. Transferred to Washington after his tour, Hughes also writes an illuminating account of the herculean efforts of many in the Pentagon to work around the corporatist elements of its bureaucracy in order to better understand counterinsurgency and national reconstruction, which Lawrence of Arabia described as “like learning to eat soup with a knife.” This book helps explain the sources of mistakes made—and the process needed to chart a successful strategy. Written with candor and no shortage of humor, mixed with brutal scenes of combat and frank analysis, it is a must-read for all who seek insight into our current situation in the Mideast.