Storytime with K-3 is over by Memorial Day… but if I were reading aloud to ANY grade level or even to adults I would choose “The Wall” by Eve Bunting.  “The Wall” is about a young boy and his father as they visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.  They are looking for the boy’s grandfather’s name; a soldier who did not live to see his own son grow up, much less his grandson. 

I do not know anyone who can read this book without shedding a tear, however, so if you can’t read it aloud, read it for yourself on Memorial Day.  Pass it around the teacher’s lounge.  Recommend it to older students, especially.  This book should be included in those lists of picture books for older students.

The names on the Vietnam War Memorial, as Bunting describes them, “march side by side, like rows of soldiers.” In 2001 our family visited D.C. and made the rounds of the memorials.  But it is the Vietnam memorial that I believe has the most impact.  Those names.  All those names.  And among them, my friend Margaret’s cousin William Patrick “Butch” Foran of Decatur, Illinois. 

Freedom isn’t free… and not only those who died pay the price… so do those left behind.