World Book Day in British schools

This week all British schools are celebrating the World Book Day Week. Depending on a school students are doing various activities connected with their favourite books: preparing costumes to wear on the 5th of March, decorating classrooms or classrooms' doors or they read together. In secondary school I'm working in, teachers are reading students a book. All week before each lesson students are listening to two chapters of Ian Serraillier's book titled 'The Silver Sword'. 

Ian Seraillier was a British novelist and poet. He is best known for writing children's books, 'The Silver Sword' is his most famous novel, published in 1956. The book tells the story of a Polish family during World War II. I must admitt the book is very good and I'm glad that British teenagers may get to know at least a little bit about the war atrocities that Poles experienced.

This wartime adventure story was adapted for television by the BBC in 1957 and again in 1971. Below - the summary of the BBC serial based on the Seraillier's book.

'THE Silver sword'

THEtelevision serial which begins on Sunday tells the story of some Polish children who were made homeless by war. When the Nazis invaded Poland, their father was sent to a prison camp, and their mother taken to work as a slave in Germany. In winter they lived in a cellar in ruined Warsaw, in summer they camped in the woods outside the city. Ruth, the eldest, had to be mother and look after her sister Bronia. Edek, the brother, was the breadwinner until he, too, was sent to Germany. When the Russian drove out the Nazis. The two girls heard that their father possibly escaped to Switzerland; they found Edek and set off in search of their father, a journey of some nine hundred miles through war-ravaged Europe; they travelled on foot or got lifts in lorries and trains, camping out fields or barns, arriving at last on the shore of lake Constance, where they could see the mountains of Switzerland, the promised land.

It is a children's war story, based upon fact. A true story does not end, it goes on onto future, and we find ourselves asking: What happened then?

On a hillside in Switzerland is an international children's village, the first of its kind in the world. It was built to provide homes for children orphaned by the war. Swiss schoolchildren collected £30,000 to pay the work, a great Swiss youth organisation provided more, and many of the workers gave their help free; in 1946, Danes, Swedes, Austrians, English, Swiss, Germans, and Italians were camping together, working happily side by side; a few months before, many of them had been fighting each other in opposing armies, and now they joined together to build a place where abandoned children might find a home, forget war, and learn to live together in peace without the fear of being driven out among strangers again. The polish family of our serial, reunited after their adventures, settled in this new village, where they helped and taught other children who had not been so fortunate.

Here is no find grieving, but an abiding hope.

The moving waters renew the earth. It is spring.

C.E. Webber

What books can you recommend? What have you read recently or reading now? 

:)