Review: Grenade

Grenade by Alan Gratz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alan Gratz has historical fiction down pat. He makes events from the past come to life for his readers, and his latest novel, Grenade, is no exception. This story takes place on Okinawa during WWII and is told in the alternating perspectives of a young Okinawan boy, Hideki, and an American Marine, Ray.

Hideki is given two grenades and charged with using one to kill as many Americans as possible and using the other to kill himself. Ray is the son of a WWI vet, so he has seen what war can do to a man. He doesn't want to become used to killing Japanese soldiers and Okinawan civilians, but he has to in order to survive. Hideki doesn't want to become a monster like the Japanese and American soldiers that he is constantly trying to avoid.

This novel truly shows war for what is: death, death, and more death. There are scenes of Okinawan civilians committing mass suicide, body parts being blown off, etc. It's certainly not a lighthearted read. Know your younger students before handing this book to them. Grenade would be a great addition to WWII text sets. I would recommend this book for mature 5th grade students and above. I can see high school history teachers using this book to highlight a battle that students don't typically learn about (at least I didn't).

I loved the alternating perspectives in Refugee; they were so necessary for that book because they helped hammer home the point that history keeps repeating itself. I honestly would have preferred for Grenade to be solely from Hideki's point of view. Ray's story serves a purpose; it shows that both sides really don't want to be fighting and that they all had identities separate from being a soldier. However, I felt like his chapters disrupted the flow for me; I read part two much quicker because it was only in Hideki's point of view. While Grenade may not be as thought-provoking or self-convicting as Refugee, it does offer a front-row seat to the destructive nature of war.


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