Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dwellings and lands destroyed. Since the time of Herodotus, we have been fascinated with chronicles of war. For young Americans, war might seem a distant concern. It happens in the Balkans or in Africa and America's major wars were fought before they were born.
Young people fight, tend the wounded, and die.
These ideas touch close to home for adolescents, who are struggling to define themselves in a complicated world. Hana, the young nurse, believes she is cursed because everyone she loves dies. Caravaggio, the extraordinary thief, has lost his thumbs. Kip's skin color and Indian origins make him a perpetual outsider. The English patient's skin has been burned away and with it a national identity that he never wanted to claim anyway.