I Had Seen Castles: A Coming-of-Age WWII Novel of Teen Love, Enlistment, and the Conflict Between Duty and Conscience

by Cynthia Rylant

John Dante is seventeen when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, and he wants to fight for his country. But then he falls head over heels for Ginny Burton, who is against all war, and his beliefs are suddenly questioned. Rather than be judged a traitor or a coward, though, John enlists--a decision that changes his life forever.

Includes a reader's guide and an inverview with the author.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, War, World War II, Historical, Read For School

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

An author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for children and young adults as well as an author and author/illustrator of picture books for children, Cynthia Rylant is recognized as a gifted writer who has contributed memorably to several genres of juvenile literature. A prolific author who often bases her works on her own background, especially on her childhood in the West Virginia mountains, she is the creator of contemporary novels and historical fiction for young adults, middle-grade fiction and fantasy, lyrical prose poems, beginning readers, collections of short stories, volumes of poetry and verse, books of prayers and blessings, two autobiographies, and a biography of three well-known children's writers; several volumes of the author's fiction and picture books are published in series, including the popular "Henry and Mudge" easy readers about a small boy and his very large dog.

Rylant is perhaps most well known as a novelist. Characteristically, she portrays introspective, compassionate young people who live in rural settings or in small towns and who tend to be set apart from their peers.

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Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a tough little book.

It's a lyrical little book.

It's a book full of heart.

It's honest.

It leaves you humble.

Cynthia Rylant's 97-page novel I Had Seen Castles is the fictional memoir of a man who came of age at the dawn of America's involvement in World War II. John Dante was a young man "pissed" about Pearl Harbor and ready to lay his life on the line in the name of his country.

As he prepares to do just that, he meets a girl named Ginny who challenges his notion of what is right. She is a pacifist, and she argues that the bloodshed that is war is wrong.

John disagrees until he finds himself in the midst of combat. Then the cliche "they fought for their country but died for their friends" becomes a truth that should not be a truth because no young men should be in the situation so many young people were placed in during the Second World War.

Through the voice of John Dante, Rylant explores the tragedy of war--it's inevitability, the sorrows and the dire loneliness it engenders in the people who do the dirty work. There are no easy answers. The pain that war engenders last a lifetime. The emotional and intellectual distance between those who fight and those who stay at home (and ultimately benefit from war) never closes.

In closing his story, John Dante says he still loves Ginny, wherever she is.

The book had me in tears. In life there are things that can't be fixed, though love remains.

Love remains.

But we lose so much when we fight.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rylant shines in this fiction work about World War II. This book shows the brutal honesty of what life was like in America during the months leading up to the war and the years that followed. The most poignant part of the book were the raw emotions of what life was like on the front lines and what the soliders, few more than boys, endured during their time overseas.

Unlike most stories told about World War II, this book does not focus on just one event (the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the bombing of Pearl Harbor). Instead, it envelops all the stages of the war through one soldier’s eyes including his return after the war. When you read it you feels as though you are sitting and listening to the soldier's first hand memories of his time leading up to and in the service.

This book could not have been written better. The size of the book is small but it really packs a punch that the reader will feel right down to their very core. This would be an excellent book for struggling readers when working on a WWII unit. I would definitely say this should be only high school and above because it does contain sex, underage drinking, and very vivid accounts of the atrocities of war.

A must read for all.

[Stephanne Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart has been profoundly touched by this simple book. I'm not sure if it is because so many of my family have served our country in war and in peace time, or if it is a story that will touch anyone's heart. Either way this has made my must read list for anyone middle school and older.

Rylant has done such a wonderful job with the emotional development of the protagonist that by the end you felt this soldier's loneliness and regret. There are times when a single sentence spoke years of wisdom, and there is much to learn from that wisdom.

I will reread this on Memorial Day, or December 7, perhaps on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Whichever I choose, I WILL reread it once a year. I want to feel the sacrifice the soldiers made for what they believed to be right, what they felt was so important even death made no difference. Yet when it was all said and done the sacrifice was more than imagined. I want to be grateful for what I have been given. I want to understand that I will never understand the great sorrow these men carry. Thank you soldiers, for everything.

[Lisa Guzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this book until it was on a list of recommended texts for a high school war stories unit. I ordered a copy for my classroom shelf and was surprised to find that it is less than 100 pages. John Dante is 17 when WWII begins, and he narrates his experiences getting ready to go to war and briefly what it was like to be in the war. It is impactful in a small amount of words--not graphic necessarily, but doesn't shy away from the horrors of war. It felt very real as far as what a soldier might think and feel serving at the front for years. The author does well as examining why some people want to go to war and why some people don't, and neither one is presented as right or wrong. The tone is very somber and feels authentic. Some of the passages will stick with me for sure.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 4 out of 5]

The horror of 1939 when a family learns about the capabilities of the nuclear bomb. Pittsburg boy, 16-year-old John, is anxious to join the fighting in World War 2 until he meets Ginny, a pacifist who challenges his thinking and changes the course of his life.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice (and, in retrospect, fortuitous) find, a pleasure to read, ... featuring tight prose and an extremely compelling voice, ... it's a novella (or very short book) written for (much) younger readers that stood up nicely for this (not young at all) reader.

As a culture, we long have glorified war (and combat) and, having grown up in and having served in the military (and, frankly, been associated with the Army my entire life), I am intimately familiar with (and still highly conflicted about) my youthful obsession with, well, all of it, from the uniforms and the weapons to the comradery to the history (nay, lore) to the culture to the community to the training to ... yes ... whatever it is that persuades you that (for me, leading up to and, ultimately, at the age of 20) nothing is more important and meaningful than repeatedly stepping out the door of a perfectly good airplane and earning the shiny silver wings I wore proudly on my chest ... and yet ... and yet ... I'm now at an age when I look at so much of this differently, which, in part, was why the book - narrated by a fictional author of (basically) my current age ... resonated so deeply.

It's not a perfect analogy, but reading this reminded me (vividly) of Walter Dean Myers' two wonderful (children's' or) young adult books, Fallen Angels and Sunrise Over Fallujah, even though they couldn't be more different.

It's a gem of (as I understand it) young adult fiction (or, apparently, according to the Library of Congress category, juvenile fiction), and I'm somewhat intrigued that I'd never heard of (or come across) it previously, particularly, to the extent it was originally published in 1993, it was in print long before the years in which I was most familiar with Rylant's work ... or at least her then more popular stuff that we read to our (then) kids (or they read when they were early readers).

I'm pleased this came to attention, and I immensely pleased that I found and read it.

[Chrissa Kuntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a short book, it packs a big punch. Good for teens!

[Katelyn Kirchgasser]

this book was very interesting and emotional. it shows the life of a young man living in the time of WW2. It starts off with the main character, John, living in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. This is during the time that Pearl Harbor was recently bombed. All men in his area are infuriated and all wish to join the army. John is only 17, a senior in high school, so he has to wait to apply. Though many of his friends already left, like his best friend, who dies in battle. During the time he was home, John was on a bus and was pushed off since it was heavily crowded. A girl his age helps pick him up off the ground, Ginny. John already feels himself falling for her and asks her out, and this sparks their relationship. It shows their love, yet differences from each other, and how even though they had different opinions on certain things they never stopped loving each other. Ginny is different from other girls, and doesn't swoon over everything John said. When John tells Ginny he was to leave for the war soon, they go through a major argument. Nonetheless, John leaves and goes overseas. Ginny sends messages constantly, though none of them were encouraging and all inspirational, so John stops responding. Then, Ginny stopped sending. Soon after this, John is sent to battle and the images he sees changed his life and person. He came in an upper middle class young boy, and out as a nothing less than traumatized man. He saw the differences and similarities between him and the foreign soldiers. When he returned home, Ginny and her family were gone. John never was able to find her. From here, John realizes he needs to go somewhere where others has suffered the same challenges, so he moves to Europe. John lives in a small farm house in rural areas, and just sits there, in the sun, writing. At the end, he explains that Ginny had said words to him that kept himself, and his sanity alive while in battle, and that if she ever sees this, he still loves Ginny. This book showed another side and life of a person affected in WW2, and I've gotten to hear the story of another life.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not meant to be a book of suspense. From the very beginning we know that the narrator is telling us the story of his experiences during World War II from many years since that time. We need not even have any suspense about the fate of his relationship with the girl he left behind, as it's reasonably clear that he's alone when he tells us the story.

Rather, this is a story of what happened to one boy when the U.S. entered WWII. Told with incredible detail, Rylant puts us inside the head of a seventeen-year-old boy who can think of nothing else but joining the army and doing his patriotic duty. Until he meets Ginny, who challenges all of his beliefs about war and patriotism. Looking back on it, he is able to recognize her extreme courage in speaking out against war and encouraging him to register as a conscientious objector, but at the time, all he could see was all the other boys going off to war, even though he knew that all too many of them were not coming home.

He joins up as soon as he is able and is shipped off to the European front. His patriotic ideals last for a while, but soon he admits that he is killing the enemy only to stay alive himself. Ginny's letters ring too true to bear, and eventually he stops writing back to her. When he returns from the war, she and her family have moved away, and he is never able to find her again.

This is also not a book of regret, although clearly the narrator regrets in some way the loss of Ginny, and the loss of his own innocence when he went away to war. But this is a book of truth. Rylant doesn't sugarcoat the nature of war or the effect it has on those who must fight it, both on the battlefield and at home.

[Not Jorden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Had Seen Castles by Cynthia Rylant. This is about a 17 year old boy named John Dante who was to make the choice to either go out to fight for the US in the Second World War. He must choose to leave his friends and family to go and fight, or stay and be known as a coward.

The most humorous part of the book was when Ginny and John had sexual intercourse and he said later on that while doing that he had a craving for a Spaghetti Dinner at Luigi's Restaurant. It was quite funny because it was a pretty serious book in till then. It was a serious story with some funny/inappropriate parts. But this I was not expecting! It was well.... random!

The plot of this book, this book had me on the edge of my seat! There was some parts that were like "OH! GET OWNED!", some that were "WOW!", and some that were "That is kinda cheesy" (love at first sight with Ginny and John). The ending was quite good, since he got to move and live around the world (jealous). But I was kind of hoping that him and Ginny were going to get back together! But I recommend this book to anyone, if you are interested in WW2 or if you are interested in Romance, this is the book that has both!


-Jorden

[Jason Bilili · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I Has Seen Castles by Cynthia Rylant is a novel that has a women author that writes about a mans experience at war. The soon to be enlisted soldier named John Dante from Pittsburgh. The story seems to alternate between his youth which is in the 1940s and his older present self in 1992. John seems to believe to fight for your country means honor and bravery. I think alot of other readers who are interested in short novels about war will like this book. Cynthia writes this novel shortly in just under 100 pages. This is a quick novel but yet has important details. In the novel John ends up meeting Ginny and falls madly in love with her. The way the author Cynthia describes the way like its a actual war not a fantasy as others might think because its a women author. After him returning we notice he has changed a lot almost into a whole new person. He learned from being overseas that he had mor in common with his enemy than he did with the citizen of his own country. So that makes Ginny the only person that John feels hes able to relate to. I personally think this is an excellent book.

[Kayden Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

John has been playing with toy soldiers all his life but when he finds a girl called Ginny it's time to grow up. They get really close and eventually do the devil's tango. World war 2 has started and John wants to enlist but Ginny wants to stop him. He doesn't listen and eventually goes to the army where he fights in the second world war. He and Ginny promised to send letters but after a couple of years, they stop. Until when John gets home he realizes that Ginny and her family had moved. This historical fiction book is not Cynthia Rylants first book as she started with a kid's book. She has also written other very good books such as Missing May. The characters are very good in this book and I think that is why I liked it. They get well-developed and have very good stories and are very believable. This book is very well written and very engaging and inspiring. I thought this book would have been another of those war books that aren't well-written and stale. I would recommend this book to almost everybody if they like romance.

[Beaskneas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tiny little book that I got at a second-hand sale. My copy is from 1993 and apparently cost $13.88 which I think is outrageous. Well written and evocative.

[Jim Kownacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight and The Things They Carried this book explores what it's like to see combat and how hard it is to come back to civilization. You can't tell others as they only want to know the good about you not the evil that you've seen or done as they can't understand it unless they've been there.

Going from the easily influenced halcyon time of high school to war to it's aftermath, this book beautifully traces the life, and agony the protagonist faces when they see and do horrible things in the name of patriotism and religion.

A priest once told me that god does not condemn you for killing in the time of war. I can't wrap my head around that.

Every parent should be given a copy to read when there child is deployed so they know how to handle it when their son says, "Pass the fucking mashed potatoes" at Thanksgiving.

[Kaysey Beury · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very quick read-- in fact, I read it in one sitting in about 2 hours. This account of a teen leading up to enlistment and then deployment during WWII was sad and didn't have a happy ending. The writing was simple compared to other WWII texts I have read, but this fictional story was compelling. It didn't need the pages of description to convey the devastation and horror of war.

That said, I didn't like the end. There was room for more.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short, quick book, but it is that very sparseness that makes the story so gripping, honest and memorable. This book does nothing to glorify war. It deals with the brutalities of war with harshness interspersed with honesty and it forces you to focus on the desolate nature of war. So many war stories deal with the bad by focusing on the heroic nature of their actions, never looking too closely at what those actions did to those soldiers. After Hiroshima, what did the scientists who created that bomb feel? How did those men in that lone bomber deal with the destructino they'd caused? How do soldiers survive with their sanity intact after shooting at people for days, watching their friends demolished and fearing every moment might be their last. Cynthia Rylant does not negate the importance of what these soldiers did for our country, but she does force us to look at them differently. She forces us to acknowledge that they, along with those they fought against, were and are human. This is not a book to glorify war, to make you proud to of the fighting. It is instead a short, dark glimpse into the emptiness that can be caused by constant dealth and destruction. Here is a boy who say and participated in the most horrific events a body can be subjected to. He lived, and he remembers.

[Kristins Nusbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. This is a story narrated by John Dante in the first person. This book takes place in the 1940's in Pittsburgh.The themes of this book would be love and war. This is a novel and its also fiction.
John Dante get mad when hearing that the Japanese had set off a bomb in Hawaii. So his friends and he are all determinnd to go into the military. They all think they are capable of ending this war. He has to wait until his 18th birthday to enlist into the military. One day when John was trying to get off the bus a guy pushed him down. It was unknown if it was on accident or on purpose. When he fell that's when his life took a change. He met the lovely Ginny Burton.Little did he know that Ginny was going to change his life forever. Now John is faced with a hard choice. He has to chose between going into the military and fighting for his country something he wanted to do for sometime, or he can chose to stay but be labled as a coward. If he stays home then he can be with his family and the girl he met falling off a bus. His choice will be forever life changing.
I loved the book because it was nicely written and it was written with strong emotions. I would recommend this book to all ages. I will read anything that Cynthia has written because I enjoyed her writing style.

[Kate ✨ is a dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful

[Int'l librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rylant has written 97 pages of Cliff Notes for World War Two fiction. The narrator is in his 60s, looking back upon his enlistment and combat duty in Italy. The home front war factories, blind patriotism, desperate romance, the bomb: it’s all crammed in. As for emotional themes: “I could not articulate then, in any way that she would have understood, why I would rather have died than been judged a coward.” “Only this did I fear: only death.” “We were all clean shaven, our uniforms unsoiled: a handsome group of tidy boys trying to look like soldiers.” The returning veterans “were bloody and dirty and haunted and they watched us go by in our clean uniforms with a mixture of pain and contempt in their faces – and a third thing. A residue of terror, I think.”

There are other details, but not enough to build a strong sense of story. It’s more a syllabus of war as hell. I think I retained enough to pass the exam, and that’s about it.

[Joshua Blum · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the title and cover (my copy showed a picture of an American GI holding a rifle and looking at a medieval desert castle far in the distance), one might guess that this is a novel not so much about war but the effects of war, particularly its aftermath on the psyches of both the main character, a young GI, and the nations involved in WWII. But it's also about growing up, experiencing too much too soon, and trying to reconcile a return to civility after one has, at best, seen castles, and at worst, done and seen unspeakable things, supposedly in the name of one's country. Intertwined is a tale of bittersweet love that blooms out of the innocence of late adolescence and fades amid the inevitable cynicism and bitterness of war and its aftermath, though it never dies. This little lyrical novel is one of those books that makes you wish, at the end, that it had been longer. But in the tradition of Hemingway and Steinbeck, it doesn't need to be.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't remember where I heard about this one, probably the Maud list, but I had to request it through ILL. It was worth the wait. I'm a huge Rylant fan and have been ever since I read Gooseberry Park. This couldn't be more different, but it's exquisite.

The protagonist is an old man looking back on the little bit of time leading up to and encompassing WWII, which he fought in. The tone is removed but not flat, not unemotional but also not too immediate for comfort. The story is really a love story interwoven with the story of how war can sabotage the purest things, how even the bravest boys can die and how the innocent are maimed. I adored it, start to finish.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book because it was from the unique point of view of an old man looking back at his teen years. This book shows what its like for young men who are in love with someone to go into war and having to leave everything behind. This aspect of war is often left out of many stories. It was interesting to learn about, not just the blood and gore that goes along with war, but the emotional side of it. I can imagine many young people felt the same way this 17 year old felt. I would recommend this book to others wanting to read a book about the holocaust without the actual carnage that comes with war.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Young, hopefull, energetic and idealistic John Dante is 17 when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Swept away with patriotism, John eagerly awaits his 18th birthday when he can enlist in WWII.

Years later, now retired, John tells the reader his story of how his war experiences shaped and changed him.

Rylant writes with compassion, insight and poetic sparseness of beauty. This is a small book that packs a big wallop.

Sadly, because it is labeled Young Adult, many may never read this incredible gem!

Highly recommended.

[booklady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful little pocket-sized book which turns black & white things gray and fuzzy. It probably deserves a higher rating just for its shear memorability--it is a story which will stay with you. I like Cynthia Rylant anyway.

Have read several times and always in a single day, if not one sitting.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thin Young Adult book with a big subject. Well-written account of what it was like to be a young man during the World War II era & the loss of innocence & internal change that war brings. Haunting but very positive in the end.

[Nicholle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprisingly important young adult novel. To find an anti-war novel about WWII is uncommon. To have it be a YA book is even more uncommon. Rylant scores with this real evaluation of serving for one's country with unrealistic visions of war.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book, sometimes I am in awe of an author's ability to get such a complete point across in such a short book. Made me think of my grandfather and his time in the war. Also made me very thankful he knew my grandmother was waiting for him to come home.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

How could I forget Cynthia Rylant? Such good stuff. This is about a kid who feels pressure to join the military during WWII because all his friends are, but the girl he loves is telling him not to.

[Jenny]

I re-read this one last week, after years of it sitting on the shelf. I dearly love it.

[Art · Rating 3 out of 5]

Young man waits till he is of age to join up to fight the Japenese.
Letters home about the war and things seen.
Youth, love and desire to live.