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Honouring Our War Heroes or Honouring War? Well-being in Contemporary Australian War Fiction for Children and Adolescents

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Abstract

War, like other stressful situations and experiences, entails a threat to one’s subjective well-being, and war fiction for children represents this threat in different ways: some narratives minimise it, and others do not. War fiction, then, provides material for a case study of war and its impact on representations of subjective well-being (SWB), and how this is communicated to children in the stories they read. This article examines representations of SWB in the context of Australia’s involvement in World War I in two recently published picture books: Midnight: The Story of a Light Horse (2014) by Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac and One Minute’s Silence (2014) by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri. These picture books invite young readers into conflicting views of war and its impact on SWB. On the one hand, in Midnight schemas and scripts construct the belief that war is a glorious event that has a positive impact on SWB. On the other hand, in One Minute’s Silence schemas and scripts challenge the view that war is a viable means of solving national problems and enhancing SWB, and remembers its war heroes as tragic participants in a violent and senseless war.

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Fig. 1

© 2014 Mark Greenwood/Illustrations ©2014 Frané Lessac. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd

Fig. 2
Fig. 3

© 2014 Mark Greenwood/Illustrations ©2014 Frané Lessac. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd

Fig. 4

© 2014 David Metzenthen/Illustrations ©2014 Michael Camilleri. Reproduced by permission of Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia

Fig. 5

© 2014 David Metzenthen/Illustrations ©2014 Michael Camilleri. Reproduced by permission of Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia

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Notes

  1. Of seventeen recently published Australian picture books about World War I, eight thoroughly dismantle the heroic schema of the soldier, and seven invest unquestioningly in the idea that war is a deeply meaningful event.

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Funding

The author acknowledges the support of the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship in the preparation of this article.

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  1. English Department, Macquarie University, 273 Owens Road, Martinsville, Sydney, NSW, 2265, Australia

    Adrielle Britten

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  1. Adrielle Britten
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Correspondence to Adrielle Britten.

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In loving memory of my grandfather, William Nelson Patrick (1892–1972).

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Adrielle Britten is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Macquarie University in Australia, from which she holds a Master of Arts in Children’s Literature. Her research focuses on representations of the flourishing child in fiction for children and adolescents and engages with the broader field of well-being studies.

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Britten, A. Honouring Our War Heroes or Honouring War? Well-being in Contemporary Australian War Fiction for Children and Adolescents. Child Lit Educ 53, 112–129 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-021-09442-z

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