The Button War

Don't even touch this book if you want light, uplifting historical fiction

A group of pre-teen boys in a small Polish village engages in an increasingly dangerous contest to collect buttons from the uniforms of soldiers as their town is plunged into World War I.  The boys are led by bullying and self-deluded Jurek, who is willing to risk his comrades’ lives to maintain his position.  Patryk, the book’s narrator and moral center, finds himself unable to resist Jurek’s taunts as he is drawn ever deeper into the deadly “game”.

Written in unornamented prose that is spare to the point of harshness, this book stays out of its own way and lets the reader consider the consequences of toxic pride, social pressure, and subjective truth.  It belongs on the same shelf as such other difficult-to-read but necessary books as The Chocolate War and The Lord of the Flies.