From Goodreads,
"Renowned, award-winning author Avi pens a stark, unflinching tale of ordinary boys living in wartime as tensions — and desperations — mount among them.
Twelve-year-old Patryk knows little of the world beyond his tiny Polish village; the Russians have occupied the land for as long as anyone can remember, but otherwise life is unremarkable. Patryk and his friends entertain themselves by coming up with dares — some more harmful than others — until the Germans drop a bomb on the schoolhouse and the Great War comes crashing in. As control of the village falls from one nation to another, Jurek, the ringleader of these friends, devises the best dare yet: whichever boy steals the finest military button will be king. But as sneaking buttons from uniforms hanging to dry progresses to looting the bodies of dead soldiers — and as Jurek’s obsession with being king escalates — Patryk begins to wonder whether their “button war” is still just a game. When devastation reaches their doorstep, the lines between the button war and the real war blur, especially for the increasingly callous Jurek. Master of historical fiction Avi delivers a fierce account of the boys of one war-torn village who are determined to prove themselves with a simple dare that spins disastrously out of control."
As a child my mom always had a button box. Inside were various buttons, but none were super fancy. They were usually from old outfits or from my dad's Army fatigues. But I always enjoyed playing in the button box. I would look through the buttons and let them run through my fingers. My mom still has a button box and more buttons have been added. There are three buttons that are of fruit. I remember them because they came off of a shirt I had as a toddler that had fruit buttons down the front. One was in the shape of cherries, one bananas, and one was grapes. It is so strange how something as simple as a button can bring back so many memories.
The Button War is told by a young boy named Patryk who finds a lone button in the forest one day. He showed the button to his friend Jurek who told him that he "owned" the forest and that the button belonged to him. His aggressive and controlling demeanor soon led Patryk, Jurek, and their friends to start collecting buttons. Jurek decided that they would all collect a button and had to return that night to see who had the best and who would be crowned the button king. The boys were soon searching for buttons as Russian and German troops traveled back and forth across their land and started a battle right in the middle of their town. Patryk has to decide if being the button king is worth dying for.
This book was phenomenal. I just recently read Lord of the Flies and this had the same vibe to it. As with Lord of the Flies, there's this strong desire among a group of children to be the king. And as with the above-mentioned book, things go all wrong and people end up dying. I absolutely despised Jurek in the book. He was a huge jerk to all of his friends. (Maybe his name is close to jerk for a reason.) He had this undying desire to be the button king. He was didn't care about his friends who were beaten up and died or who were murdered. He even went as far as murdering a friend to hopefully be the button king. The behavior that Jurek exhibited in the book I have seen before. I've seen this type of behavior before from students who are living in poverty. They don't have the best or newest clothes, toys, or games. They overcompensate by being mean to kids and telling big lies to hopefully gain friends and popularity. Jurek exhibited the same patterns and behaviors and was "competitive" against people that would have normally accepted him. I just wish that Jurek had made a character arc at the end of the book where he had realized that his friends were all gone or dead because of him and his silly button war. I think it would have been a full wrap around and a lesson learned.
There were a couple things that I didn't really like about this book. One was that I'm not a history buff and had no idea what time period this book was taking place. I wish that there had been a clear cut statement that had clarified what the year was or what war was going on. I think there was a big opportunity to pull in more historical information, and it just wasn't there. The other thing was that there were quite a few boys who were involved in the button war, but I didn't feel like we ever got close enough to any of them to truly learn about them. They were characters that were there. We know they were part of the button war. But there I felt like they were really shallow characters that were just there to fill a spot in the book. I wanted and needed more from some of those characters. I think that the different personalities would have allowed readers to find a character to really connect to.
Even though there were some character details that could have been filled in, this book was really good. I think it will be fairly popular once I'm able to reopen my classroom library. I give this 4 stars. I think that this book will be enjoyed by boys, especially those who enjoy war books since there are some strong military themes throughout the book.
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