The Forty-Third War — Louise Moeri

A twelve-year-old boy learns about death and the conflicts that grip his Central American country when he's pressed into military service and trained as a soldier. "In constructing her story, Moeri faced a formidable challenge: how to look at a war that uses children for fodder and make it comprehensible, even reasonable, without glorifying its existence or rendering her story completely hopeless. She succeeds, portraying complicated emotions in terms children can understand." -- Booklist