All in all, if you want to know more about WWII and love a dash of humour, try out this book (and the rest). Aih..ternyata isinya berat yah...Terlalu berat utk anak under 10 rasanya. Beda kalau liat TV dibikin konyol2 berdarah2, tapi kalau ditulis jadi serius dan agak gloomy, walau penulis udah berusaha keras bikin cerita jadi ceria. Habis gimana ya..memang topiknya perang gitu lho.

Dan lagi-lagi penulis berulang kali berlaku fair, dia bercerita tentang serangan udara yang terjadi pada sebuah sirkus, kuda2 yang dihias warna-warni mati bertumpuk2 oleh serangan udara pasukan Jerman, badut, tenda-tenda, anak-anak dan keluarganya yang sedang asik pergi demi melihat secuil entertainment di masa yang luar biasa suram...terbunuh Penulis meng-highlight betapa prejudice adalah senjata yang paling berbahaya :( dan semuanya itu dia lakukan dengan luwes, tanpa menggurui. As one of the original series of Terry Deary's Horrible Histories, "The Woeful Second World War" describes the timeline, causes and key points of the second world war in a humorous yet tasteful way that both appeals to older primary school students and brings home the terrible nature of war. Beli buku ini juga pada awalnya karena panik liat anak sendiri gak doyan baca. Kebetulan dia suka acara TV series-nya, jadi saya pikir ini bisa jadi jembatan untuk menumbuhkan minat baca. Bukunya penuh gambar, banyak model komik, atau tulisan tangan, pokoknya rame, walau hitam putih. Jadi menurut saya udah menarik banget kalau dibandingkan dengan Enid Blyton di Indonesia waktu jaman saya seumur dia. Dia juga bercerita tentang orang-orang Jerman yang berusaha melawan Hitler, namun dibunuh, yang laki-laki digantung , perempuan guillotine. Entah kenapa harus dibedakan sesuai gender. Juga cerita bittersweet, di mana seorang pasukan Polandia yang waktu itu di bawah NAZI, naik ke loteng, melihat 20 lebih org Yahudi yang ngumpet dalam kegelapan, tapi kemudian turun dan melapor kepada atasannya yg NAZI, no, there's no one.

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I thoroughly enjoyed these books as a child, and would read them in my own time. This, I have always thought, is a great achievement of Deary's. To get a boy with a relatively short attention span to sit and learn about history without being told seems to be a holy grail of education, but he has managed it. Dan ini semua diakhiri dengan sebuah illustrasi seorang bapak dan anak yg bergandengan tangan, dg comment bubble si anak bertanya pada bapaknya, "Why is it that the ones who most need to remember are the ones most likely to forget?"

Deary gives you some idea of the scale of the war, no mean feat: of the true global nature of the war, of the unimaginable number of casualties both military and civilian, of the atrocities, of the heroism, of the hardship.

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In 1939 most people really believed that wars were fought only by soldiers. The 2nd WW changed that forever. Wars were being fought by everyone;people in the cities as well as men on the battlefields. An America said, "Total wars are won by the side with the biggest factories." In the 2nd WW it had become easier to kill someone when all you had to do was push a button and drop a bomb. You'd never see the suffering you caused. I just adore that we have quizzes in this book, though I don't always participate in them these days. I used to try to solve them, but these days I just skip to the answers. :P I know, terrible of me, but I just can't resist. And in my defence, I already read these books, so I already did the quizzes the right way at least once. Fakta2 yg bikin angkat alis, bahwa Hitler sayang binatang, melarang perlakuan keji, eksperimen thd binatang, tapi it's ok kalau eksperimen sama org Yahudi. Cerita2 personal seperti sebuah keluarga yang mau mengubur kakeknya, tapi gak punya peti, akhirnya digulung begitu aja dengan karpet digotong keluar. Pas tiba2 ada serangan udara, terpaksa mereka ngumpet dan ninggalin kakeknya begitu aja di jalan, pas mau diambil lagi udah hilang...halah