Q is for ... Le Quesnoy

Every year on the 25th April, ANZAC Day, both the nations of New Zealand and Australia stops to remember those who served or are serving in our military.

Briefly for those who don't know what an ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) is, it is man who'd served with the Anzac forces at Gallipoli in 1915/16. Over 8,000 Anzac's were killed at Gallipoli and 18,000 wounded and another 8,000 missing (possibly blown up or captured).

This year it is in the middle of our school holidays in NZ so we wont be doing too many activities as we are pretty busy with trips planned away. I did manage to grab a few books from the library for us to read. Sadly they didn't have much choice for my girls age so we made do with what we could find.

The first book we have just read is "Le Quesnoy - The Story of the town New Zealand saved" written by Glyn Harper and illustrated by Jenny Cooper.

It's the true story of how a group of NZ soldiers saved a small town in France, Le Quesnoy (pronounced Ler Kay nwah) being occupied by the Germans, during the first World War. It's written as though the story is being told by a woman who was there when she was about 5 or 6.

The town of Le Quesnoy was an old fort, protected by high stone walls up to 20 metres high. There were around 2,000 Germans occupying the city, which they had done for about 4 years. It wasn't an easy time for the locals, they shipped any healthy men off to work for them in Germany and then took what they wanted, not leaving much to the towns people who were hungry and scared.

The New Zealand division was sent to Le Quesnoy to take back the town. In order to take back towns, in many cases they were destroyed and civilians killed. In this case, whilst around 130 Kiwi soldiers were killed and another 300 wounded, not one single civilian life was lost!

The book is basically a picture book, so there's not a lot of reading and it's probably best aimed at 5 - 8 year olds but my 11 year old found it a "cool story", although she more listened than looked at the sweet illustrations. At the back of the book is a map of the town and more "older aged" details which I was able to read out to my girls. We all thoroughly enjoyed the story and then spent a little more time online looking to find out further information. Agent Smelly was even inspired to go and make a poppy out of Hama beads.

The people of Le Quesnoy have never forgotten what the NZ troops did for them and many of the town's streets have New Zealand names and they even teach NZ culture and geography as part of their curriculum in their Primary schools. They have also erected a monument near where the the first New Zealander, Lieutenant Leslie Averill scaled the wall to take back the town. Apparently New Zealanders are very warmly welcomed still to this day.

The Fashionista was pretty right, it is a "cool story".