TORO! TORO!

A young child sees violence done in the bull ring, and worse violence to his small town, in this powerful, simply written tale by Britain’s Children’s Laureate, set during the Spanish Civil War. Horrified to learn that the corrida involves not just a dance, but a death, six-year-old Antonito returns to his father’s farm outside the village of Saucedo, determined to save his beloved bull Paco from such a bloody fate. But by sneaking out to free Paco and the rest of his father’s herd early one morning, he becomes a witness as Saucedo is bombed, and the survivors massacred, by Franco’s forces. Foreman ably captures Antonito’s innocence, devastation, and slow recovery in black-and-white vignettes; Morpurgo likewise delineates the close relationship between boy and bull, and the shock of being swept up in war, in ways that will resonate with younger readers. Compelling. (Fiction. 9-11)