Product Description

Ten-year-old Johnny eagerly plays at war with the army of nutcracker soldiers his toymaker father whittles for him. He demolishes imaginary foes. But in 1914 Germany looms as the real enemy of Europe, and all too soon Johnny’s father is swept up in the war to end all wars. He proudly enlists with his British countrymen to fight at the front in France. The war, though, is nothing like what any soldier or person at home expected.

The letters that arrive from Johnny’s dad reveal the ugly realities of combat — and the soldiers he carves and encloses begin to bear its scars. Still, Johnny adds these soldiers to his armies of Huns, Tommies, and Frenchmen, engaging them in furious fights. But when these games seem to foretell his dad’s real battles, Johnny thinks he possesses godlike powers over his wooden men. He fears he controls his father’s fate, the lives of all the soldiers in no-man’s land, and the outcome of the war itself.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255141 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-13
• Released on: 2003-05-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
War idealistic, brutal, awe inspiring, numbing, jingoistic and ultimately heartbreaking is the central theme of this thoughtful and thought-provoking novel. The Great War has begun, and Johnny watches his kindly toymaker father turn against the German shopkeepers and neighbors in the family's London community. Soon after his father joins the army and travels to France to fight, Johnny is sent to live with his curmudgeonly Auntie Ivy in a small town on the south coast of England. Most chapters begin with a letter from Johnny's father, and from these the boy (and readers) derive an increasingly complex and horrifying vision of life in the trenches. Accompanying each letter, and providing vivid illustration of the events described in the missive, is a wooden soldier carved by Johnny's father, which the boy adds to the ranks of his toy army. As the weeks go by, Johnny entertains himself by staging vast battles with this army, until in a series of scenes that unflinchingly convey a child's conflicting feelings of omnipotence and vulnerability he grows to fear that his play is somehow magically affecting his father's life at the front and, indeed, the entire war. His father's account of the Christmas Truce of 1914 and Johnny's own role in reuniting a grieving family with a shell-shocked soldier are among the events that bring the novel to its solemn, yet quietly hopeful, close. Both its timing and its message are eerily resonant. Ages 10-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-In 1914, 10-year-old Johnny enjoys playing with the nutcracker soldiers his toymaker father has made for him. World War I seems distant until people he knows are sent away, and then his father joins the British army. When the bombing starts in London, the boy is sent to live with his aunt in the country. He dislikes the small town, misses his parents and friends, and is uncomfortable living with a relative whom he does not know well. He escapes his troubles by playing in the garden with the toy soldiers, adding the new one his father sends with each letter. Initially Johnny's father is upbeat and glorifies army life, but after he is sent to the front, he writes of the endless rain and mud, the rats, the shooting, and the tense waiting. Each soldier he creates becomes more and more full of the pain of war until one arrives that is so ghastly that Johnny's aunt throws it in the fire. As the boy becomes lost in his play world, he becomes convinced that the battles he puts his "men" through affect the real battles on the front. Using vivid language, Lawrence writes poignantly of war and the devastation that England and its people suffered. Because of the first-person voice, readers travel the heights and depths with Johnny's emotions and feel present in the story. Readers who enjoyed Michelle Magorian's Good Night, Mr. Tom (HarperCollins, 1982), set during World War II, will find a kindred story here.

Cheri Estes, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 5-9. War is an exciting game to 10-year-old Johnny in 1914, though he hates that his beloved dad is far away on the Western Front in France and that he has to leave London to live with his aunt in a country village. Dad is a toy maker who has carved Johnny a set of wooden soldiers, and with every letter from the trenches, Dad sends a small wooden figure to add to the glorious battles Johnny plays in the backyard. The letters quickly lose their romance when Dad confronts the slaughter of "going over the top." At first the book moves slowly; Johnny's war games go on too long. And in case readers don't get the heavy metaphor, there's a fatherly teacher to spell things out and compare the war to The Iliad, with bickering gods and rulers who "toy with the people." But there's realism in the grief of the village people and also in Dad's poignant letters, which move from excitement to boredom to horror and cover-up, and then on to the miracle of the Christmas truce, when the enemies meet in no-man's-land and exchange food and gifts, only to be sent back by the generals with orders to kill each other. This will be a fine introduction to World War I, both for personal interest and for curriculum use, especially when read with the books listed in the Read-alike column on the opposite page. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Dance dance, wherever you may be
When I rule the world every man, woman, and child will be handed a copy of Iain Lawrence's brilliant "Lord of the Nutcracker Men" for their home library. Every country in the world will have it translated. And every human being will know it. Too high praise for a book that so few people (let alone librarians and booksellers) have heard of? Not at all. The amount of reception a book receives is not always indicative of how good it is. And this book is good. Boy oh boy, is it good.

Taking the perspective of a ten-year-old boy during the first year of World War One, Iain Lawrence draws on his own knowledge (and intense research as well) to bring us a story of children during wartime. Johnny's father is a toy maker, and before going to fight the front lines he gives Johnny a set of handsome Nutcracker men to play with. As the war continues, Johnny's father sends his son hand-carved soldier to fight the German Nutcrackers. But Johnny comes to believe these soldiers carry a power beyond his own private games. As he plays with his toys he hears of battles frighteningly similar to the ones he's created. Soon Johnny comes to believe that the actions he takes in playing influence the real battles in France.

This book is about war. The dirt, fatigue, and mindlessness of it. Drawing on the Iliad, Lawrence draws definitive connections between Troy and World War One that are eerily credible. As Johnny moves from loving the excitement of war (as a child does) to hating it (as an adult would) his opinion of fate, the gods, and God himself waver between fear and love. Beautifully written passages display his father's disillusionment as he deals with constant shelling, death, and despair. Though he never comes out and says it, the audience understands that this war really did mark the end of chivalry. Certainly we remember some dashing figures from this time. The Red Baron. Lawrence of Arabia. But for most soldiers it was a dirty filthy war. Based on dirt alone I highly recommend pairing this book with Karen Hesse's "Out of the Dust". You'll never want to leave your shower again.

After the story, Lawrence clears up many of the facts portrayed within the story, elevating it from interesting fiction to a novella based in reality. Yes, there really was a Christmas Truce of 1914 where Germans and Brits climbed out of their trenches into the No Man's Land to celebrate Christmas together. Yes the village of Cliffe had their railway bombed by the Germans. Lawrence also notes that the supernatural was invoked more than a few times during the long years of the war. This feeling is well replicated in his book. The story wavers between what is real and what is imagined brilliantly. It never changes its tone (which is to say, it never starts out as a historical drama and suddenly turns sci-fi) and there are moments of otherworldliness that are nothing if not poignant.

It is a gory story. It has moments of horror and despair. But it is also an honest story. This tells a tale of a country in which war was seen as a glorious outing, only to turn into more death than anyone could have ever imagined. Sound familiar? When governments can make war seem wonderful, people will buy into the myth. It takes books like, "Lord of the Nutcracker Men" to remind us of what's really important in life.

"We're getting better at fighting wars. We've got them running like machines now: faster, more efficient."
"I wish we'd get better at not fighting them," I said.
"That's a fine thought," said Mr. Tuttle.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men
World War One has just broken out, and London is being bombed by Germany. It is World War One Europe, and the "Great War" has just broken out. Mr. Briggs has just been shipped to France, and Johnny is being sent to the countryside. This book is best for elementary-aged children.

This book really does realistically reflect what many children in England went through during World War One. Johnny was sent to the countryside to live with his aunt, which most good parents would probably do. Johnny receives letters from his father throughout the war, and receives little wooden toy soldiers that progressively reflect the hardships of war. The book is very realistic in that sense.

In the book, Mr. Briggs (Johnny's father) seems very enthusiastic about going to war, along with other residents in London. He is so enthusiastic that he is actually frustrated that he can't enlist because he is half and inch too short. This reflects how ... little the people knew about war. And, it is how the people did react at first.

And, it is very interesting how that Johnny begins to believe that the battles he performs with his toy soldiers determine real battles. Though he may be only ten years of age, it does seem pretty strange that he would believe in something like this. He believes it so much that he becomes extremely upset when the toy soldier-imitation of his father becomes mangled.

As said, this book is really best suited for elementary aged children. It has a fairly poor use of vocabulary, and the protagonist is only ten years of age. But, I really didn't like this book, and wouldn't recommend it to many people.

-=Bill L.=-

Lord of the Nutcracker Men
Johnny is a ten year old boy growing up during a difficult time. His favorite pastime is
playing with the toy soldiers that his father, a popular toymaker in London makes for him.
One day he gets the terrible news that his father must leave their home and go fight in
World War I, and he must stay at his Aunt Ivy's house. As the war between the Allies and the
Central Powers intensify, Johnny's father sends him toy soildiers, and eventually makes one
of himself. Throughout the novel, Johnny plays intense battles with his friend Sarah, until one
day he realizes that the battles that he fights are the same as the battles that his father writes
about. He also finds the figure of his dad and thinks he can see the future. Johnny is tutored
by his teacher, Mr. Tuttle, and soon talks with a commander who has lost his mind. Finding out
that this person is supposed to be dead, Johnny seeks the answers of his life that is right
outside his window, until his father finally comes back home. Lord of the Nutcracker Men is a
fantastic novel by Iain Lawrence. It is a book that anyone will easily get caught up in reading.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men has an excellent plot that has numerous twists and will
keep anyone on edge. In the middle of the novel, Johnny sees a commander walking around
the trench where he plays with his toy soldiers. After the man mysteriously vanishes, Johnny
comes across a picture of him. The man, whose name is Murdoch, is supposedly dead.
Meanwhile, when Johnny is playing with his soldiers, he notices the toy soldier version of his
father has turned gray and pale, almost as if his life has been knocked out of him.
Remembering that all of the battles that he had fought were exactly like the ones his father fought,
Johnny is worried that something will happen to him or already has.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men is for those who like suspense, but is also for people who
like to read historical fiction. The novel takes place in the beginning of World War I, and has
a lot of information packed in the pages. In the early chapters of the book, Johnny is picked on
by a gang of bullies during Guy Fawkes day, a holiday celebrated by the English. Also,
his father is fighting on the war front in France, when on Christmas Day in 1914, a truce
occured between the Germans and the British. Even though the book has so many facts that
you might get lost on some parts, the story that tells how Johnny lives through the war is amazing.

The main character in Lord of the Nutcracker Men, Johnny, has the perfect character
traits. This ten-year old boy is highly intelligent, and hopes for his father to beat the odds against
the Germans. Johnny also speaks what he thinks, which sometimes gets him into deep trouble,
as when he says he sees Murdoch, a person who is supposed to be dead, and really isn't.
However, the number one trait that Johnny has is endurance. He uses this trait throughout
the novel to escape hardships, such as his dad fighting in France for such a long time, and
having to live with Aunt Ivy, who can be very stern. Johnny is a very special young boy.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Lawrence, is an excellent book that everyone should
read if they like action and suspense all in one. I rate this book a grand total of four stars out of
five.


A. Chappell