Zero Hour

Winner of the NZ Post Children's Book Awards, non-fiction category and shortlisted for the CBCA Children's Book Awards, 2011.


The First World War was only meant to last six months. When the Australians and New Zealanders arrived at the Western Front in 1916, the fighting had been going for a year and a half and there was no end in sight. The men took their place in a line of trenches that spread from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps. Beyond the trenches was no-man's-land, an eerie wasteland where rats lived in the ribs of the dead and the wounded cried for help. Beyond that was the German Army.


The Anzacs had sailed for France to fight a war the whole world was talking about. Few who came home ever spoke about it again.


Zero Hour is the third book by Leon Davidson, author of the best-selling and multi-award-winning Scarecrow Army: the Anzacs at Gallipoli and Red Haze: Australians & New Zealanders in Vietnam.


'Written with a simplicity and directness that make it an ideal teaching tool, Zero Hour blends historical overview of the Anzacs' role with ordinary soldiers' experiences and perspectives.' Age