Since tomorrow is November 2nd, All Souls Day, we are remembering our heroes of the past who died.
We recently read a book called Innocent Heroes by Sigmund Brouwer, and we learned a lot about the First World War from reading it. We also learned about the role that some animals played in helping soldiers in the war.
The characters are Canadian soldiers in a platoon called the Storming Normans. The main characters are Jake York, Thomas Northstar, Charlie, lieutenant Norman, Lance, and all the animals that help them.
It takes place in Courcelette, Vimy Ridge, France, and George Gordon Reserve, Saskatchewan, Canada.
In the book it shows how living in a trench is hard; there are lots of rats that steal the soldier's food and bite them and suck their blood when they sleep. Shells are always exploding everywhere. They go on many missions and raid a German trench. The adventures the animals go on through their missions are crazy, and they couldn't have done the missions without all the training.
In the end, they win the war and survive.
I really liked the book because it told me how the soldiers felt in the war and it inspired me to make the trench scene out of Lego. My favourite chapters were about Boomer the cat (because I like cats), Louise the pack horse (because this chapter takes place after the war ended), and the Epilogue (where the veterans lived happily after the war). ------E1
The book helped me to understand how animals really helped in war. The chapter I liked the best was about Boomer. Boomer was a cat that helped kill rats in the trenches, so that the soldiers didn't get bitten in their sleep, and then they could rest enough to work in the morning. ----E2
There's a soldier behind the sandbags
The battlefield
There's a wounded soldier who got shot down on the ground.
This is supposed to be a carrier pigeon taking a message to the soldiers.
This machine turret soldier has fallen
This is the overview of the trench.
Here is a soldier with a large gun.
This is a machine gun turret in the trench.
There is a trail of rat urine near the bread. Soldiers stored their food above the trenches.
This is Boomer the cat, he eats rats. There were many cats in the First World War to patrol for rats.
There is a boat that got hit by a shell and is in pieces.
These are the beds inside the trench; it was very uncomfortable to sleep in them.
Here is a medic and a radio man.
This is a soldier reading a letter from home.
There is another soldier running whose clothing caught fire.
Soldiers threw dynamite to blow things up. The minifig is in a shell crater doing that.
