Slap Your Sides — Content Guide for Parents
Found in this book
- ViolenceSupporting
- Scary contentBrief
- ReligionCentralChristian
- Race & cultureBrief
Not found
- Climate
- Sexual content
- Gender roles
- Gender & orientation
Couldn't confirm
- Profanity
- Profanity: The sources do not describe the book's language, and no parents' guide or text search was found.
Content themes
Factual summary of themes present in this book. No opinion — just the facts.
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Religion
PRESENTContains references to prayer and church attendance. A minister character plays a supporting role in two chapters.
About this book
Friends, I have to speak up and oppose this praise for a conchie, even though he is my own blood. I may love Bud Shoemaker, but I don't admire him any longer. How can I if he won't pull his weight in this war? How can you be pacifists with a madman like Hitler ready to rule the world? I want to say to you all, Wake up!
Everyone in Sweet Creek knows about Bud Shoemaker. Nothing is secret for long in that small Pennsylvania town. Bud has been asked not to lead his Boy Scout troop anymore. When he drives up at the Texaco station in his old Ford, the help take their time coming out to pump gas.
A lot of regular customers aren't buying at his family's department store, either. And a lot of the Shoemakers' friends are no longer that friendly.
Jubal Shoemaker, fourteen, finds himself being treated differently too.
One day the girl of his dreams, Daria Daniel, tells him that her father "doesn't think it's good for me to be around you people too much."
"You mean the Shoemakers? Is that what you mean?"
Bud has changed things, Jubal. A lot of people don't like what he's done. It's not just us!"
Instead of joining the armed forces with all the other young men in town, Bud Shoemaker chose to be a conscientious objector, abiding by his family's Quaker beliefs. Now Jubal, who has always idolized his brother and wanted to be like him, suddenly wonders if he can be -- if he even wants to be like him -- when Bud's decision seems to be tearing their family apart.
Frequently asked questions
Is Slap Your Sides appropriate for a 7-year-old?
Bud is badly beaten by men in a pickup truck and threatened at a work camp, Jubal reacts to a perceived attack on Daria, and the war brings a brother's death. The family faces threats and harassment, Bud is beaten, and Jubal confronts a deranged escaped objector he thinks is attacking Daria.
Does Slap Your Sides have violence?
Found (Supporting): Bud is badly beaten by men in a pickup truck and threatened at a work camp, Jubal reacts to a perceived attack on Daria, and the war brings a brother's death.
Does Slap Your Sides have scary content?
Found (Brief): The family faces threats and harassment, Bud is beaten, and Jubal confronts a deranged escaped objector he thinks is attacking Daria.
Does Slap Your Sides have religion?
Found (Central, Christian): The family's Quaker faith drives the story, as the oldest brother refuses to fight in World War II because of his Quaker beliefs and the town reacts.
Does Slap Your Sides have race & culture?
Found (Brief): A reviewer says the book shows how people treated as inferior, such as African-Americans and Japanese-Americans, were mistreated in wartime, and a Native American patient is wrongly blamed for Bud's beating.
Does Slap Your Sides have profanity?
Couldn't confirm: The sources do not describe the book's language, and no parents' guide or text search was found.
Does Slap Your Sides have climate?
Not found in the sources we checked.
Does Slap Your Sides have sexual content?
Not found in the sources we checked.
Does Slap Your Sides have gender roles?
Not found in the sources we checked.
Does Slap Your Sides have gender & orientation?
Not found in the sources we checked.
