1. Art techniques
2. Bravery
3. Danger
4. Death
5. Empathy
6. Guilt
7. Historical fiction
8. History
9. Imagery
10. Letters
11. Perspectives
12. Photography
13. Soldiers
14. Tolerance
15. Trauma
16. Violence
17. Visual literacy
18. WW1

‘A story from the First World War told in miniature,’ says the cover. The last hours in the life of young French soldier Pierre are told in a series of scenes imagined as tiny figures in a wargame. Pierre will not die from an enemy action but by orders from his own army’s command as a deserter, and tells the story in a letter home to his mother. This extraordinary approach to telling the story of a seldom explored aspect of warfare is the product of all three creators – model maker, photographer and designer. The result is a series of scenes as from a play.

Like the villagers whose lives have been disrupted by the war, the reader is an unwilling inadvertent witness. The placing of figures with their backs to us, further enhances the feeling of the viewer as voyeur. Film-like, we hear Pierre’s inner dialogue with his mother as well as that of a narrator. The battle scenes look like figures in a wargame, and in a way they are. Within a very short time, the reader sees the humanity inside these doll-like figures with crude cut features. In the double spread, ‘Then we finally saw battle’, it is obvious that we are looking at toy soldiers: the bayonet is balsa wood; the bugle will never sound, being thick with paint; and the ground they tread is that fake turf seen around model railways. But just as puppets live and breathe in performance, the design, lighting and model making bring the true cost of conflict to life so that the following pages, ‘We won / It was terrible’, have the intended impact. Young people familiar with stop-motion animation experimentation of their own will recognise and marvel at how the technical combination of all three creators can result in a timeless and beautiful book. Winner of 1st Prize at the Prix Sorcières 2019, France’s most prestigious award for children’s books.

1. Little Soldiers Stories 6 April 2020 A website created by the artists with extensive information on their process with teacher notes https://littlesoldierstories.com/
2. Little Soldiers Stories Study Notes for ‘The Good Son’ https://littlesoldierstories.com/factual-information-little-soldiers-good-son/
3. Australian War Memorial 7 December 2020 Encyclopedia entry on Desertion https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/desertion
4. Wikipedia ‘Wargame’ entry ‘Miniature wargaming is as much about artistry as it is about play’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargame
5. Toy Photographers Website review of ‘The Good Sun’ includes photographic references, the back story of the book, and creation of the figures https://toyphotographers.com/2019/06/27/the-good-son/
6. Reading Time review 11 Jul 2019 by Kevin Brophy of ‘The Good Son’ http://readingtime.com.au/the-good-son-a-story-from-the-first-world-war-told-in-miniature/
7. Kirkus review 5 Mar 2019 of ‘The Good Son’ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/pierre-jacques-ober/the-good-son-ober/
8. ReadPlus review 29 Jul 2019 by Sue Speck of ‘The Good Son’ https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/the-good-son-by-pierre-jacques-ober