For children who live in war times, whether they understand the issues or not, the future is precarious. According to the United Nations, armed conflicts now kill and maim more children than soldiers. In Shattered, editor Jennifer Armstrong gathers 12 stories that explore the ways young people are affected by war. From Afghanistan to Hawaii, Civil War times to the present, Joseph Bruchac, Ibtisam Barakat, Lois Metger, Marilyn Singer, and others describe, in painful, sometimes wry, detail small slices of their war-splintered world. M.E. Kerr depicts the mixed feelings of the family of a conscientious objector. Graham Salisbury writes about a high-school boy woken out of a complacent existence to discover his island is under attack and he must don his wrinkled high-school ROTC shirt to defend his home. A single line of text runs along the bottom of each story, providing cold, dismaying background information about each war portrayed. Authors' notes at the end of the book allow contributors to give a little more of the personal history behind the stories. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter