The Great War: Stories Inspired by Items From The First World War. 5 CDs. 6:28 hrs. Brilliance. 2015. $49.97. ISBN 9781501216008. Gr 5-8–At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, Germany and the Allies signed the truce ending the Great War, as World War I was then called. Here 11 authors—Tanya Lee Stone, Marcus Sedgwick, David Almond, Timothée de Fombelle, A.L. Kennedy, Ursula Dubosarsky, Michael Morpurgo, John Boyne, Tracy Chevalier, Sheena Wilkinson, and Adèle Geras—have each contributed a short story built around an artifact from the era, including a helmet, compass, recruitment poster, and Christmas Tin, to introduce the time period to middle grade students. In Sedgwick’s “Don’t Call It Glory,” for example, a young boy learns about shrapnel lodged in a withered oak tree since the English downed a German airship. The historical fiction pieces come to life in the rich voices of performers Nico Evers-Swindell, JD Jackson, Gerard Doyle, Richard Halverson, Sarah Coomes, and Nick Podehl. VERDICT Each of these stories, so full of genuine human history, will leave listeners asking for more and enliven and enrich their studies of the First World War.–Mary Lee Bulat, Harwinton Public Library, CT