Private Peaceful Paperback – 2 Aug. 2012

This book killed me. I loved every bit of it and was moved to tears so much that by the end of it I was bawling my eyes out. Very descriptive, poignant and really makes you wonder how on earth we managed to win the First World War. This book is a keeper and everyone should read it. We should never ever forget.

I'm in bits now as I'm writing this. Private Peaceful was brilliant, frighteningly realistic and so incredibly moving. I must admit soldiers shot for "cowardice" isn't something I know much about but I feel so angry on their behalf. This book is a must read and that's all there is to it.

It’s a good book but so expensive. A bit difficult for my 10 years old daughter .

Excellent book, my daughter is reading this in her English lesson for school

Private Peaceful tells the fictional story of a young man, Tommo Peaceful, who becomes a soldier in the First World War. Unlike many other war stories, it delves into an aspect of war that is much less known about: the soldiers executed for desertion or cowardice.Inspired by the name on a gravestone in Ypres, this thought-provoking novel explores the injustices suffered by many soldiers and questions the notion of cowardice and heroism in warfare.Written from the perspective of Tommo Peaceful, the 18-year-old soldier narrates his account in a series of flashbacks over a 24 hour-period, as he reflects upon his life. The writer gradually pieces together the whole story, until the past catches up with the present in the penultimate chapter.The narrative begins in England during young Tommo's childhood years. The first half of the book focusses on family life in the countryside, from his first day at school to his first job as a farm boy. Events take a dramatic change when, at sixteen Tommo enlists and ''change[s] [his] world of home for [his] world of wars''. The young soldier is soon taken to the battlefields of Belgium, fighting alongside his protective elder brother and best friend, Charlie Peaceful, and experiencing the full brutality of warfare and life on the front line.This novel epitomises Michael Morpurgo's imaginative and skilful storytelling, which undoubtedly makes him one of Britain's best loved children's authors of today.The Postscript makes the reader aware that although this story is an invention, the predicament facing Tommo and his brother was very much a reality for many other soldiers fighting in the Great War.Like Michael Morpurgo's other war stories (such as War Horse, Farm Boy and The Butterfly Lion), Private Peaceful was conceived by his fascination with war and his desire to enable children to better understand it. In the light of the present war in Afghanistan and, as we approach the centenary of the First World War, Morpurgo's books are ever more relevant.

One of the most tragic events of the 20th century was the senseless slaughter and sacrifice of many young men on the battlefields of the Somme,Verdun and Passchendaele. The iconic 1914 recruitment poster of Lord Kitchener, wearing a cap of a British Field Marshall, stares and points at the viewer pleading to their sense of allegiance and responsibility by declaring..."Your country needs you" The specially constituted "pals battalions" resulted in friends, neighbours and colleagues enlisting together at local recruiting drives with the promise that they could serve alongside each other. However many of these battalions sustained heavy causalities and this had a significant impact on their communities at home.In the small Devon town of Hatherleigh lives young Tommo Peaceful with his brother Charlie and the girl they both adore, Molly. This is family life, village life, captured in the idyllic Devon countryside before the encroachment and black clouds of world war 1 destroys the dreams and aspirations of so many in pointless sacrifice ensuring that life would never be the same again....."We'd lie amongst the grass and buttercups of the water meadows and look up at the clouds scudding across the sky, at the wind-whipped crows chasing a mewing buzzard"....Tommo and Charlie are gripped in the romantic notion of helping to eradicate the threat of the Hun who were attempting to grow their military might and realize their imperialistic ambitions. So the two brothers and close friends from the village march blindly off to war where the initial patriotic enthusiasm dies tragically amidst pointless butchering when the reality of war is revealed...."I could no longer pretend to myself that I believed in a merciful god nor in a heaven, not anymore, not after I had seen what men could do to one another. I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth and it was man-made, not God-made"......."the terror that is engulfing me and invading me, destroying any last glimmer of courage and composure I may have left. All I have left now is my fear"....Michael Morpurgo expertly portrays the senseless slaughter and sacrifice of world war 1 to a young impressionable adult audience. This is achieved by comparing the beauty and peacefulness of the English countryside with the shell ravaged mud filled trenches of France....this was the raw reality of war. Private Peaceful is a sombre novel to be read by young and old. It's simplistic language is very effective in creating an image of a time when the romantic notion of war quickly became a vision of hell and where the loss of millions was seen as an acceptable price for the march of imperialism and the misguided ambitions of WW1 military leaders. Highly Recommended.

Evocative of another, historically turbulent time and beautifully articulated, 'Private Peaceful' left me saddened, shocked and plain simple outraged at the sheer inhumanity it exposes so bluntly. Spare, stylishly written and pulling no punches, it exposes a time, a set of conditions and, above all, a savagely vindictive mindset that booked no opposition. If this book does not move you, then nothing ever will...