Operation Iraqi Freedom, that's the code name. In this new novel, Walter Dean Myers looks at a contemporary war with the same power and searing insight he brought to the Vietnam war of his classic, Fallen Angels. He creates memorable characters like the book's narrator, Birdy, a young recruit from Harlem who's questioning why he even enlisted; Marla, a blond, tough-talking, wisecracking gunner; Jonesy, a guitar-playing bluesman who just wants to make it back to Georgia and open a club; and a whole unit of other young men and women and drops them in the country in Iraq, where they are supposed to help secure and stabilize Iraq and successfully interact with the Iraqi people.
The young civil affairs soldiers soon find their definition of "winning" ever more elusive and their good intentions being replaced by terms like "survival" and "despair. Ages " - VOYA. Myers's expert portrayal of a soldier's feelings and perspectives at the onset of this controversial war allows the circumstances to speak for themselves.
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Reader Reviews Write your own review. Walter Dean Myers's fiction and nonfiction books have reached millions of young people. A prolific author of more than one hundred titles, he received every major award in the field of children's literature. Walter Dean Myers: The primary research for both books was done through interviews with veterans. The After Action reports, describing particular battles, were invaluable as were the assessments of the field commanders. The war in Iraq was far more politically complex than Vietnam, and the political analysis by both sides was useful.
The war in Iraq was also delineated by Central Command in terms of more specific objectives than were available in Vietnam. Controlling a specific geographical area or supply route, for example, would be cited as the rationale for a particular operation.
This clarity of operation and subsequent success or failure gave me an excellent picture of how the war was succeeding or failing. Fallen Angels was published twenty years after the Vietnam War ended.
How is it different to write about a war still in progress? Walter Dean Myers: The war in Iraq was somewhat easier to write about because material from American soldiers, as well as the Iraqi army and Iraqi people, was more available. Internet blogs, news accounts, and international news sources have provided clearer pictures of everyday events than were available even twenty years after Vietnam. Tribal loyalties, local power struggles, adventurers, and mercenaries make up a large portion of those willing to take up arms.
Walter Dean Myers: Shortly after Fallen Angels appeared, a woman wrote to me stating that her son had wanted to join the army to fight in Vietnam. She had begged him to at least finish high school.
Imbued with the romanticism of war, he went to every war movie he could. When he read Fallen Angels , however, he changed his mind about the glory and heroism of war. He loved his country just as much, but was more reflective in his thinking about the adventure of armed combat. They all remained very closed-off and I don't think everyone in the army is tight-lipped, there has to be more than one fun-loving Blues man like Jonesy in a battalion. It was also really hard keeping everyone's rank straight but that's not the author's fault, it's my own slow brain.
The story did seem a bit predictable to me concerning the death of a character, obviously a character is going to die and I thought who it was going to be was clear. I also didn't like the one-sided letters. Birdy told us what his mom said in emails but we only read his letters.
I think it would have been interesting to read his uncle's responses to his letters, especially as a war veteran. Furthermore I wanted to know more about his father who was against Birdy entering the army. This is odd because it's a novel about war but I found it dull at parts which was unfortunate.
The story is exciting though even when no action is occurring. It's exciting and saddening to read Birdy's thoughts on war, exciting because he never really THOUGHT about what being in a war meant so it's nice to see him try and sort out his many different feelings but it's sad because it's WAR.
Birdy asks good questions "When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine I wondered why God mad the insides of people. Why not just make solid people that could do the same things we did instead of all the little parts, veins, arteries, hearts and things that could go so wrong. Why didn't God just keep it simple? The author does an excellent job of explaining what was going on in the early, tumultuous days of the Iraq War through the ideas of CA soldiers well I think it's accurate but I wasn't there.
This is vital for teen readers because most of us are too young to understand and remember the beginning of the United States' invasion of Iraq. Sunrise Over Fallujah offers look at a war that has only recently ended and some may argue is still going on in a thoughtful, intriguing manner. The author remains satisfyingly neutral, simply reporting the facts, representing various perspectives through the group of soldiers we briefly meet.
The only message the author has is that soldiers are courageous and deserve the utmost respect which no one would argue against.
The story didn't always hold my interest, especially at the beginning and the ending wasn't that great either but the middle kept a steady pace that held my attention. I would have liked well I don't think I could like a book about war to better understand the backgrounds and motives of the characters, even the main character was a mystery which isn't interesting. Overall I just had a meh reaction to this book and it's hard for me to explain why, and for that I apologize.
Oct 25, Ethan Benson rated it really liked it. Many novels seem to describe war and its effects on those who participate in the exact same way, by showing that war is simply bloody and brutal, while not actually giving any thought to how it changes people over the course of the story.
Then there are those that offer insight to the emotions and thoughts of the participants themselves, often evolving throughout. Sunrise over Fallujah, for the most part, falls into the latter category. This novel is considered to be the tie-in and companion, if Many novels seem to describe war and its effects on those who participate in the exact same way, by showing that war is simply bloody and brutal, while not actually giving any thought to how it changes people over the course of the story.
This novel is considered to be the tie-in and companion, if not a sequel, to Walter Dean Myer's Fallen Angels. Despite this, Sunrise over Fallujah distances itself from that novel in the sense that it takes place in a very different war. Robin Perry is a young man from Harlem who, after the events of September 11th, , enlists in the United States Army.
Robin, who is soon dubbed "Birdy" by his fellow soldiers, finds himself in Iraq during the events of of Operation: Iraqi Freedom. The story starts off innocently, as Robin is assigned to a civil affairs unit, not a front line unit that will participate actively in combat.
It is soon revealed that simply helping civilians is not as simple as one would guess. The conflict soon reaches Robin's unit and they end up seeing a fair amount it. The novel shows a fair amount of evolution in the protagonist over the course of the story, which proves to be an admirable quality that most readers would enjoy. Robin arrives in Iraq, overly curious as to what war is really like.
This curiosity could have been created by his uncle's own tour of duty decades earlier in Vietnam, which provided the basis of the plot in Fallen Angels. The evolution of Robin is showed by the numerous letters within the story that he wrote to various family members.
After a period of time, curiosity is replaced sheer terror while knowing that, in war, no one is truly safe. As a whole, Sunrise over Fallujah proved to be an interesting read. The story did combine moments of boredom of boredom with those of conflict and violence, as Robin is involved in numerous fights, all seemingly unexpected. The story shows how war can both create and destroy relationships. A few likeable characters were also introduced along the way, such as Jonesy, the strange blues musician turned soldier.
Apart from the few main characters, the rest seem to lack the evolution of other characters, such as the protagonist. It seems almost as some people were completely unchanged by their own experiences. Overall, Sunrise over Fallujah is relatively enjoyable, despite its shortcomings. May 15, Sandy rated it it was amazing.
He does just that--without his father's support. In Sunrise over Fallujah, the young adult novel by acclaim writer Walter Dean Myers, Birdy finds himself in Iraq and attached to a Civil Affairs unit, a group of soldiers assigned the dubious honor of testing the waters in various "hearts and mind" situations with local Iraqis conceived by higher ups who say they are intent on establishing peace and building democracy.
Birdy soon learns the people he can trust are the men and women soldiering right alongside them. Beyond this small group, nothing's for sure. Because soliders who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom had not only to defeat an enemy but also to build relationships with locals whose loyalties might by lie with the old regime or with some other religious faction or with some other tribe, knowing where to point the gun and when to soot becomes a nightmarish challenge.
The Rules of Engagement change from day to day. Nothing is clear. Nobody can be trusted. Everyone has an agenda. And some lies are very convincing. Myers's novel takes the reader on a journey through the desert, the streets of Baghdad, and other parts of Iraq that are as mysterious as they are ancient and sometimes incomprehensible to the young man from Harlem and his friends--a tough gunner who bounced around in foster care, a wannabe blues musician, a dad--in uniform.
Moving forward from day to day with limited information to do job after job on which depends the future of a war-ravaged country about as unlike the US as a country could be turns Birdy and his friends into adults who understand the power and eloquence of silence to speak for the soul from that place deep down where words have no place.
As I turned the pages of this novel about teenagers at war, I found myself muttering, "No way, no way, no way I could see the students in my classroom becoming these soldiers--and hopefully knowing before it's too late that life is about the person alongside you and the only moment you have is right now. Mar 16, Lon rated it liked it. I read this book for two reasons. First, Meyers is an influential Young Adult author, and I wanted to know if and how to recommend this book to any of my middle school students interested in war.
Second, I admit that, after 8 years and counting of military involvement in Iraq, it's all too easy to allow the societal, moral, and political ramifications of the war recede in my consciousness. The novel helps humanize the issues and evokes in me more of an emotional response than I get from the pe I read this book for two reasons. The novel helps humanize the issues and evokes in me more of an emotional response than I get from the periodic news updates.
No novel can possess all virtues, since some are mutually exclusive. This novel trades the intimacy of being in a character's head for the objectivity of seeing everything around that character without any authorial intrusions. The author kind of straps up a video camera to the head of the 1st person narrator. That point-of-view character doesn't ever let us see himself, though. Like viewing a family photo album in which we never see the dad, because he's holding the camera.
Ironically, this main character is the person we end up knowing the least and caring about the least. If the protagonist experiences a change across the novel, it's very understated--maybe a loss of innocence. The up shot is that there wasn't much editorializing or sentimentality, just a panoramic view of a military detachment's experiences.
No attempt is made to glamorize war. This is not a jingoistic treatment. Nor does the author seem to have an agenda in delegitimizing the war, either.
It seems like a pretty even-handed perspective. No one is demonized in the book, neither Americans nor Iraqis, and the author tries to show the multi-layered complexities of the situation. The author lost a brother in Vietnam, where he himself also served, so when a character dies in this story, there's an interesting blend of reverence for the sacrifice, but also questioning the premises upon which the rationale for the war is founded, as well as more existential questions.
Overall, not a heavy book, but Meyers gives the subject the gravitas it deserves. May 06, Sara rated it it was ok Shelves: war-stories. For some reason, Myers chose not to have someone edit this book, and that offends me. There are direct contradictions in action and thought within single paragraphs, not to mention descriptions, explanations, and dialogue that are repeated within just a few pages of each other. It's sloppy writing and nonexistant editing, and for someone who wrote something as good as Monster, it's inexcusable.
There are good things about the book. The main character and his unit are alternately funny, terrifyin For some reason, Myers chose not to have someone edit this book, and that offends me. The main character and his unit are alternately funny, terrifying, and sad. The story points out the hypocrisy and willing naivete that accompanies American involvement not only in the Middle East, but in all other countries.
The Iraquis are shown in a multi-focal, well-rounded way that in no way insults their culture or integrity. The American military personnel are shown as human beings instead of robots. There's a soccer game between some of the soldiers and a group of Iraqui village boys that is so well-written, it can make you laugh and groan from irony at the same time. On the other hand, there's a lot of meaningless intermediary waffling, then no real ending to the book.
Myers sets up a situation between the main character and his father that is never resolved. The unit completes a poorly-described, confusing undercover assignment, then are split up and reassigned for no apparent reason.
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