All Quiet on the Western Front

"Won't you join up, Comrades?" Kantorek, a schoolteacher, addresses his class of young men. Those days seem long ago to Paul Bumer and his classmates, all of whom enlisted in the German army of World War I. Although they are hardly twenty years of age, in a matter of time the fighting, death, and poor living conditions around them have aged them well beyond their years. Paul remains close to his classmates and they find a few other good friends in the army. Time after time, their unit is called up to the front, and they are forced to deal with the horrors of bombardments on their trenches, the shells, the gas, and the death of so many comrades. This book is a very vivid account of a war where young men of the same generation but different uniforms were forced to grow up early in the war. - Melissa