Rating: WORTHY!
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This book may be a little pie-in-the-sky, but it offers some true stories and some basic truths. Every other pages asks a seemingly silly question, such as what if battle grounds were soccer fields and spectators cheered for every team? Or, What if Navy SEALs balanced balls on their noses? Or what if innocent civilians could be airlifted by music?
When you read the accompanying story, each only a few paragraphs long, you realize that the question is not only not as silly as it initially sounded, but is in fact rooted in a real event. Clowns, rappers, children, and even circus performers have helped to bring peace to troubled areas.
Of course, not every idea is always happy. The question about battle ground and soccer fields talks about the success of the Ivory Coast soccer team in Africa, and how friendly soccer games led to a ceasefire. It carefully ignores the reverse situation where a soccer game ended in two nations going to war (between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969). Of course, the underlying causes went deeper than one soccer game, but it's still a fact of life.
But that's not the focus of this book - and rightly so. Instead it chooses positive as did the people whose stories are told here, and that's the right way to go and a useful and inspiring lesson for children everywhere to learn from and emulate. Our president should read this book! I commend this as a worthy read.
