Six Men

Gr 2—4—As he did with The Conquerors (Handprint, 2004), McKee makes a political statement. The six men of the title are looking for "a place where they might live and work in peace." Although they find it, their new wealth brings worries. They hire soldiers to guard their property and eventually to attack their neighbors. The neighbors escape to the other side of the river and build their own army. Eventually, after each army shoots an arrow at a passing duck, both assume they are being attacked and a battle ensues. Everyone is killed, except for "six men from each side, who…started to travel the world searching for a place where they might live and work in peace." Cartoonlike black line drawings, some heavily detailed, some spare, illustrate the text. The causes of war in this story are so oversimplified that the explanation is perhaps condescending, even to young children. Better allegories, such as Eve Bunting's Terrible Things (Jewish Pub. Society, 1989), abound.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ