Kiwis at War 1917: Machines of War product reviews

I have read some of the previous books in this series and I love stories based on true events so I knew that I was going to be getting this book to read even if I had to buy it from the kids school book fair.

I found that the story was easy to read, there is a lot of action and a lot of the characters were described in such a way that you felt like you knew them. I will never understand why young boys felt the need to lie about their age to sign up but I know it did happen often. Bob was a normal kind of guy with the cheeky kind of personality that you still find in the youth today, I had to have a good laugh at some of the things he got up to and how he got himself out of sticky situations. The other pilots were described in detail so that you felt like you know them, there were both good and bad characters and sometimes they weren't what you expected.

I really liked the photos at the end of the book as it helps make it all seem a lot more real. I also always read and enjoy the authors notes about what is fact and how much is fiction. It is great that a lot of the names used in the book was based on real people. I usually want to see who made it back home and who lived to a ripe old age. The glossary at the back also helped as there are terms used that I wouldn't know.

I will be keeping this and letting my boys read this when they are a bit older, not sure my sensitive 9 year old will want to read this as he often tells me that he has no interest in war and is more than happy to bypass the military exhibits at MOTAT.

I have read the first three books in this series so had been looking forward to reading this one - and I have to say, I think it is the best so far. I found that I could not put the book down; Bob, the hero of the story, is the same age as many of the high school students I teach today - and it is amazing to read about the maturity and heroism of so young a person who should never have had to face the reality of war and battle carnage. But those were the realities of war - young people were sent off to fight for their country when they should have still been enjoying their teenage years. Sadly, many of them did not make it back home. And many more sustained terrible injuries which affected them for the rest of their lives.

I found the style of the book compelling. It is told in the first person by young Bob, and reading between the lines I could tell just how quickly he had to grow up and how deeply affected he was by the deaths of those around him. Having lost his brother and assumed his identity so he could join the Royal Flying Corps as an observer - with the aim of eventually becoming a fully-fledged pilot - he experienced serious injury, institutional bullying, and the realities of air battle all within the first days of arriving at the 48 Squadron HQ. The dating of each chapter so it looks like a diary entry shows just how quickly events unfolded.

The battle scenes and the unbelievable casualty count are described in graphic detail; the shock value is not played down for its target readers (young adults) and I would agree with this: it is important that the horror of war is made clear to young people while they are still learning to make informed decisions. There are times when the sheer adrenalin rush of Bob's aerial gymnastics make them appear like a gloried computer shoot-'em-up but then the reality hits as a plane goes down and with it a mate that might have been socialising with Bob only hours beforehand.

The inclusion in the book of a glossary of acronyms and other war-related terminology, a referential timeline of the events, author's notes on the real (as opposed to fictional) characters, and archive photographs of the Bristol Fighter and Sopwith Camel aircraft (as flown by Bob) and the Fokker Dc1 flown by the Red Baron all helps to authenticate the story. Although this is a work of fiction, it is based on real events and experiences and is a sobering reminder of just how much members of the armed forces had to go through in order to defend their countries. As a New Zealander, Bob is typical of many young people (mainly boys) who had to leave their homes and join forces with the British and other allies overseas.

This book should be compulsory reading for all teenagers, both boys and girls. It provides a strong message about the evils of war and the way that technology can be used for both good and bad. I would like to see it available on the bookshelf of every secondary school.