Walker hopes to reach the children
DOWNTOWN The audience sitting inside of the public library quietly and collectively utter oohs and aahs as the soft-spoken woman sitting before them recites the verses of a small children’s book.
Some children in the audience sit motionless and listen, others squirm impatiently in their chairs, some gurgling in their mother’s arms.
Then, as Alice Walker closes her book, the audience erupts in applause.
It might be a book found in the children’s aisle, but it focused on a topic that resonated in this audience of largely Westside residents — anti-war sentiments.
“The Color Purple” author was in town on Saturday to speak about her latest literary work, “Why War is Never a Good Idea,” at the Santa Monica Public Library.
The 32-page picture book very simply put, discusses the ravages of war, illustrating that war knows no bounds — it attacks the people of a small South American village, could kill a young African mother and baby, and eradicate an entire jungle filled with snakes and other vulnerable animals.
The message essentially is that “though war is old, it has not become wise,” according to the book’s introduction.
“Though war has a mind of its own, war never knows who it is going to hit,” states one passage in Walker’s book.
A fan of many of Walker’s books, Rachel Shapiro came with her 5-month-old son to the book reading, acknowledging that her child is too young to understand what was going on around him. She hopes to be able to one day read the same book to her son, reflecting on the day when she heard Walker recite it live. about war as long as it is provided through a proper forum, the Venice resident added.
“You can picture yourself reading it to a kid,” she said, alluding to Walker’s book. “It’s easy poetry to read.”
Walker, who lives in Berkeley, began formulating the concept for the book shortly after it became evident that the United States was going into military conflict against Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks.
She began conducting research on the country, learning that there are hundreds of thousands of disabled Afghani orphans.
“That is a lot of children who cannot possibly get out of the way of bombings and shootings and explosions of war,” Walker said in an interview last week. “I wanted to express to children — and also the children in all of us — that war itself is the enemy of not just the human being, but of the planet.”
Walker partnered with her old friend Stefano Vitale who illustrated the book. The two also paired to produce the children’s book, “There is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me,” which she also read on Saturday.
Children are very smart and are able to comprehend more than people think, Walker said, referring to whether war is an age-appropriate topic. Walker, whose own daughter started reading at the age of 2, said that children need more guidance to absorb reality rather than live in pure fantasy.
“When the American people are told that they are living in an “endless war,” the children who are born today can expect to grow up and become soldiers,” she added.
“We should teach them that war is a big problem for humanity to be solved and there is no real future in it and we should have leaders and people in our society who are courageous enough to actually talk to other people rather than kill them,” she said.
Some parents who attended agree. Nedra Journigan, who came with her daughter, said she doesn’t see why the topic shouldn’t be taught to children, especially at a time when they’re learning about sex and other controversial topics in school.
The Los Angeles resident said the book accomplished the task of sending the message about war without pointing any fingers and making any direct references to the current war in the Middle East.
“It wasn’t overpowering for a kid,” Journigan said as she stood in line to get her copy signed.
“It explains it in a way children could understand.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 1, 2007. Read the original PDF.