Soldiers

This modern classic and New York Times best seller was a finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award and has become a staple of American classrooms.

This classic war novel is Stephen Crane's most famous work. It is considered by many critics to be the greatest war novel ever written. The setting is the civil war, and the hero (or anti-hero as it seems at first) is Henry Flemming, a young Northern boy who, swept up in the patriotic tide, joins the Union Army.

This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than 50 violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives.