Books about fighting in trenches, about home front, the war in Africa and the East, women, conscientious objectors and pacificism; there are so many incredible books out there to help us explore all aspects of the Great War. Here a selection of great children's authors, who have all written about the first world war, recommend their favourite books for children and teenagers to mark the centenary of the conflict.
We want this blog to grow, so if you've read a great book about the first world war please tell us about it either on on Twitter @GdnChildrensBks, email childrens.books@theguardian.com or post on Facebook and we'll add more books to the list throughout this week!
Michael Morpurgo , whose latest book on the first world war is the anthology Only Remembered
I recommend The Amazing Tale of Ali Pasha, written and illustrated by Michael Foreman, the remarkable and true story of the young sailor Alf Friston who found a tortoise on the beach at Gallipoli in 1915. Beautifully illustrated and sensitively told, this story will live on for generations to come.
Mick Manning, author of Charlie's War
Charley's War is a British comic strip written by Pat Mills and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, originally published in Battle Picture Weekly from January 1979 to October 1985 and now available as books. Although the similar title is a coincidence (I can't help my real-life grandfather having a similar name as Mill's fictitious character!) I do however love the books. Like my grandfather Charlie, the boy-soldier Charley has to grow up fast and and learns the hard way after joining up. Colquhoun's skilful comic-style line artwork tell the story in pictures and gives a real feel of life and death in the trenches and doesn't duck the tragedy or the stupidity.
Marcia Williams, author and illustrator of of Archie's War
Line of Fire is the diary of an unknown soldier found in a Paris rubbish heap by the French illustrator Barroux. If it hadn't been for Barroux the diary might have rotted where it lay, but as it is his beautiful illustrations bring life to this true account of what it was really like to be a soldier during the first world war. It is a unique and moving book.
Sheena Wilkinson, author and contributor to The Great War with the short story Each Slow Dusk
The first books from this period which made an impact on me were the Flambards series by KM Peyton, set before, during and after the war. I was absolutely devastated when the hero, a pilot who joins the RFC (as it then was) is killed.
As a teenager, Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth was almost too painful to read, but I loved it. It's been criticised for being self-pitying, but come on! Vera loses her brother, her fiance and two close friends. I loved reading about her nursing and about how she returned to a world which seemed indifferent. The letters, letters from a lost generation made me cry on a plane. More recently, Linda Newbery's The Shell House; Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, and of course Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful, which I have been lucky to have shared with several hundred children, and it gets them every time.
Sarah Ridley, author of Dear Jelly
For younger readers I'd recommend Michael Foreman's War Game: Village Green to No-Man's-Land. Beautifully illustrated and packed with detail, it tells the story of four young lads from Suffolk, my home county, who join up to 'do their bit' and find themselves fighting on the Western Front as 1914 draws to a close.
Tony Walsh, one of two poets taking part in the Manchester Children's Book Festival Tweets from the Trenches event at the National Football Museum on Saturday 6 July.
As a poet myself, I'm going to choose The Christmas Truce by Carol Ann Duffy. The Poet Laureate makes a notable addition to the proud canon of poetry about the First World War with her 2011 poem The Christmas Truce, warmly illustrated by David Roberts. Rich in imagery in both words and pictures, this evocative little book contrasts the Christmas message with the horrors of war in a way that is as thought-provoking as it is beautiful."
Tom Palmer, who is launching his new book Over The Line, about the Footballers' Battalion, at the festival.
The Trenches: a First World War Soldier by Jim Eldridge. I like this book because it is a well-researched simple story about one young man's experience of WW1. It is part of the excellent My Story series, that uses real events to create engaging narrative historical fiction for children.
Sally Nicholls
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer. Shortly after arriving at a boarding school in the 1960s, Charlotte finds herself transported back to the same school in 1918, to live another girl's life. Although a historical novel, this never feels like one - the historical details, such as the father fighting in France or the German girl who is bullied for her heritage, feel like a natural part of a school experience. Charlotte lives through the Armistice and the Spanish Flu Pandemic, giving a rare civilian's perspective of a moment in history.
Matt Whyman
The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick is a beautifully rendered novel about a girl plagued by premonitions of the First World War horrors in store. It's a fresh and original exploration of historical events that is sure to appeal to the modern reader.
Anne Fine
The Winding Road Unfolds by Thomas Suthren Hope. The author was an underage volunteer who mercifully survived, thanks to a leg wound that invalided him out in December 1917. It is the best account of life in the trenches I have ever read – indeed, I described some of his experiences in my own novel, The Book of the Banshee. Adele Geras
If I had to recommend one book for children about WW1 it would be Remembrance by Theresa Breslin and for young adults, The Shell House by Linda Newbery. Also by Linda Newbery is Tilly's Promise, just out.
Mary Hooper
There are very few books for young people – especially young adults – set in WW1, so I am recommending an actual diary which I used extensively when I was researching. It's published by the Imperial War Museum and called A Nurse at the Front by Edith Appleton. It's actually taken from a log she kept and gives day by day accounts of four years of her life as a nursing sister in France and Belgium. As it says on the cover, she "with limited resources and a shortage of trained staff, treated the survivors, comforted the dying and dealt compassionately with their relatives".
Berlie Doherty
Theresa Breslin's Remembrance because she tells in a direct and compelling way the involvement and experiences of her young protagonists, unsparing and unsentimental.
Rowena House, author and contributor to War Girls, a collection of short stories about women in the first world war from children's authors including four Carnegie winners.
Line of Fire: Diary of an Unknown Soldier is a real-life account of the opening weeks of the war, turned into a powerful graphic book by French illustrator Barroux. I like it because the story was lost, then found. Reading it is rather like over-hearing a conversation: a bit confusing, but very honest and moving.
Theresa Breslin
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. Like all Michael's books the writing is lyrical, even to the choice of names; 'Narracott' rolls around the mouth when read aloud. It is a personal favourite of mine and, professionally, as a former community and then Youth Services librarian, I admire the range of its appeal. This deeply moving story, told with deceptive simplicity, resonates with pity and passion and is enjoyed by readers from age 7 to 17 and beyond.
Melvin Burgess
I'd like to recommend a short story called The Bowmen, by Arthur Machen. It's the most dreadful short story, pure propaganda, written during the days when people in this country still believed in blood and glory. In it, the author imagines that St George appears in the trenches with a host of Bowmen to massacre the evil Germans, thus saving the nation from a terrible defeat. What's so fascinating about it is that people actually believed it. The Angels of Mons, as the ghostly archers came to be called, were soon taken as fact. Clergymen up and down the country used them in their sermons to show that God was on the UK side. Machen was appalled and tried to quash the idea, but it was already too late and he was even accused of treason for suggesting it was an invention.
Your recommendations
Trish
Rilla of Ingleside. The final book of the Anne of Green Gables series is one of the best books I've read about the people at home in rural Canada during World War I. Set in Prince Edward Island, it chronicles the war through the eyes of Rilla, one of the daughters of the village doctor. Rilla fosters a war baby, helps a bride marry her beau just before going off to the front, deals with her brothers going off to fight and says goodbye to her own sweetheart. The book is rich in humour, often provided by Susan, the family's grim housekeeper. By turns sentimental, funny and heartbreaking, it provides an excellent glimpse of a time when everyone, even in far away PEI, was greatly affected by the war.
Lucy
My Brother's Keeper by Tony and Tom Bradman which is great for primary age, and Stories of WW1 edited by Tony Bradman, which has a number of short stories by various writers including Malorie Blackman and Jamilla Gavin. It's perfect for secondary school-aged children.
Sheila
Nice day for a War by Chris Slane and Matt Elliott.
Paul
Not a book as such but a poem by Wilfred Owen called 'Strange Meeting'. It fascinated me at school and, thirty years on, still does.
Geoff
"Goodbye To All That" by Robert Graves.
Maria
A brilliant recent discovery is Where the Poppies Now Grow by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey. It builds slowly in the style of The House that Jack built and is accessible for very young children as well as older pupils. It is beautifully illustrated and simply presented for impact.
Brendan
Rifleman Macgill's War: A Soldier of the London Irish During the Great War in Europe Including the Amateur Army, The Red Horizon and The Great Push.
Peter
Simpson's Donkey, by Peter Stanley - the story of the donkey used by John Simpson Kirkpatrick on Gallipoli and beyond; told by the donkey, for upper primary readers.
Alison
Archie's War by Marcia Williams is fantastic. Beautifully illustrated and a wonderful mix of fact and fiction. I've got so much work from it with my class of Year Four it's been wonderful.
Karen
I would recommend Simpson and his Donkey by Mark Greenwood. It is an account of the story of John Simpson Kirkpatrick ( a real character) and how he and his donkey, Duffy, rescued over 300 men during the campaign at Gallipoli. Simpson, born in England, loved leading donkeys along the beach for a penny a ride. So when he enlists as a stretcher-bearer in World War I, his gentle way with donkeys soon leads him to his calling. Braving bullets and bombs on the battlefields of Gallipoli, Simpson leads Duffy to the aid of 300 Allied soldiers — earning both man and donkey a spot in Anzac history. This nonfiction tale includes a map and brief bios of key characters. It is wonderfully illustrated, includes Sikh and Australian regiments, which helps children understand that the conflict was truly a world war.
Kelly
A couple of good Canadian children's novels are Charlie Wilcox (2002) and Charlie Wilcox's Great War (2003) by Sharon E. McKay.
Sharon
The one that had the greatest impact on me was Kate Seredy's The Singing Tree (the sequel to The Good Master.)
Andrew
Well, someone has to recommend it: how about any of the First World War Biggles books by W. E. Johns? Great fun, action, adventure, and at least the author had been in action on the Western Front during the war.
Ian
Only Remembered, edited by Michael Morpurgo.
Lucy
Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Canadian author Iain Lawrence should be much more widely known than it is. 10-year-old Johnny loves playing with the wooden soldiers his toymaker father carves and sends him from the front. But as the realities of the war begin to encroach on Johnny's life, he starts to wonder if his games with his soldiers are affecting the actual war he can hear across the Channel. Wonderfully evocative, gorgeously written, extremely moving, it's a fascinating glimpse into how a child might have made sense of the horrors.
Philippa
A Long Way To Go by Marjorie Darke. Set in London, twins Luke and Bella Knight have very different attitudes to the War – Bella wishes she could fight like older brother Jack, but as a young woman, she can't. Luke is filled with loathing for the violence of the war and becomes a conscientious objector. Reading this story as a teenager moved and affected me deeply. It is also unusual in that Luke and his family are black Londoners. Emily, the gutsy Brummie heroine from Marjorie Darke's suffragette novel A Question Of Courage also appears in it.
Andrew
Biggles books by W. E. Johns?. Great fun, action, adventure, and at least the author had been in action on the Western Front during the war.
Peter
Surely nothing can be bettered for young adults, if not for children, than Henry Williamson's great novel sequence A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. The books, each of which can be read as a stand-alone novel, deal with the life of a London family in the Victorian age and in the run up to the war and, in 5 of its volumes starting in 1914 with the semi-autobiographical experiences of Williamson himself as a young volunteer.
Rose
A Young Man's War by Alec Ward. It's a book that includes the letters sent home from the Front of an ordinary soldier and highlights the fact that for many young men going to war it was a great adventure. The letters home were designed not to worry the family so are quite mundane and avoid mentioning casualties. It's real value for children lies in the use of original source material (letters and postcards) - a glimpse into the life of one young soldier who joined up at 18.
