Home Front - a book

I was able to get in a book this vacation - Home Front, by Kristin Hannah.  It was really good.  The love/relationship story was good, but the great part about the book was the storyline of a wife/mother, in the reserves who is sent to Iraq.  At the same time her husband is a lawyer defending a case in which a husband killed his wife, after coming back from the Iraq war.  It was an incredible insight into how much the Iraq war has affected people in the military and yet, unlike other wars, we are not as aware of it- yet.  I think we are still trying to show honor to the veterans from the Vietnam ware-honor that they never received forty years ago.  At the same time, we have people coming back from Iraq that we are not even aware of.  I think because there was no draft, unless you had a son or daughter who chose to be in the military, you (we) lack an awareness of the trauma these men and women went through. 

Another good thing that came out of reading this, for me, was that this is a perfect example of why we (as educators) should keep fiction in the curriculum.  The national/state push now with common core standards is for informational reading.  While I agree it is important to focus on that, I think there are so many lessons in fiction that we must find a way to balance the two in the curriculum.  This novel was a perfect example of being based on some research of an event which will affect our country for years to come, but it was not strictly "informational reading".

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