When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs Summary and Reviews
|
Our Price: $5.95 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $1.18 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of When the Wind Blows
Book Review: Graphic SF Reader
Summary: 4 Stars
The cold war sucked, you then got this. Thanks for nothing all those electing senile bad actors to be in charge of scary nuclear arsenals. Horrifying and poignant tale of the effects of a nuclear exchange, done this way so children would understand to. A pointed anti-war message aimed at the idiot politicians of the time.
Book Review: Moving, Scary, NOT FOR CHILDREN
Summary: 4 Stars
this is a well disguised scary story - it starts out all nice and gentle, and the BAM before you realize your reading about nuclear fall out. it's very very scary, and depressing. Timely to say the least ...
we are being told to protect our homes with Plastic drop cloths and duct tape... they were told to use wooden doors... read it and start thinking.
all that being said
it's beautifully illustrated - and well worth tracking down a copy.
Book Review: Please buy this book!
Summary: 4 Stars
Raymond Briggs here presents us with a disarmingly gentle, warm, humorous graphic novel, about a regular blue collar couple trying to understand, and to prepare for, the ultimate catastrophe.This touching little book came out in the early 80s, when there was a sharp spike in international public awareness of the dangers of nuclear warfare. Due largely to Ronald Reagan's hawkish presidency, people were much more fearful of this looming prospect -- and, of course, rightly so. Reading this reminds me of 1981, when I was in eighth grade, and tensions over Poland were so severe that I recall becoming a regular fixture at our local library, reading and reading, trying helplessly to understand all the forces which, it seemed, were conspiring to destroy us all.
The really touching thing, about the couple portrayed in this book, is that they are normal people. Almost completely uninformed about the world, their mental picture of the world is shaped by a haze of half-remembered patriotic propaganda that is decades out of date, and was heavily distorted to begin with. Their efforts to prepare for a nuclear attack are so pathetic that you would laugh, if you weren't already busy crying.
Those weapons are still out there. This book is important. Everyone should read it. If you half-suspect that you yourself might be slightly un-informed about nuclear war issues, I would like to recommend that you seek out "The New Nuclear Danger," by Dr. Helen Caldicott. It just came out in 2002, and includes a fantastic bibliography which could help you understand nuclear winter, medical effects of fallout, and current weapon stockpiles. There is also a great collection of relevant websites, which we should all be a lot more familiar with.... if you'd like to communicate you concern to your kids with another illustrated book, aimed at a younger audience, I would like to recommend "Hiroshima No Pika," by Toshi Maruki.
You may also like to seek out "Threads," a tremendous docudrama on nuclear war done in consultation with Carl Sagan, in 1984. "Threads" is out of print, except in the UK, but you can find it on the largest online auction houses if you put the terms "threads" and "nuclear" in the search field.
So, if you know anyone who actually went out and bought duct tape in February, 2003, I would like to recommend that you sit down with them, and spend an hour leafing through this horrifying book. Two miserable thumbs way, way, way up.
Book Review: So, this is a Holocaust....
Summary: 5 Stars
Brilliant! I'm amazed that this subject has not been the focus of other writers in this format. Whilst some may argue that such topics should be severely censored in storybook form, it must be seen as a necessary evil to relate to contemporary (and future) youth the very real prospect of the inevitable realities of nuclear war, we do them no favours by sheltering them (no pun intended) from that which appears possible in the foreseeable future. Let's hope we see more of this in the future (whatever that may be....).Book Review: When the Wind Blows,horribly wonderful, you can't look away
Summary: 4 Stars
An ederly couple in england, immediately following a nuclear attack.Sweet and horrible.
Makes for horribly wonderful reading.
Animated.
It is worth tracking down, even if it is out of print.
1 2