Mules That Fall From the Sky
And other stories of Animals in War
Nandini Nayar
Reviewed by Sinead Vaz & Jennifer Thomas
A collection of vignettes that dive into the history of animals at war. Each narrative non-fiction account covers a war and the story of the animals affected by it.
| Publisher: Penguin Scholastic Publication Date: 2025 ISBN: 9789359546063 Page count: 91 Genre: Narrative Non-Fiction QBR Reviews Issue: Q1 2026 Categories: History, War |
 |
Rather than exceptional, heroic accounts of specific animals, Mules That Fall From the Sky (Scholastic, 2025) unpacks the reality of animals at war through eight fictionalized accounts from across time periods and around the world. In talking about war, we inevitably have to talk about death, a tough conversation to have, without having animals in the mix. However, Nandini Nayar answers a very obvious but rarely asked question: what happens to animals during war? With a diverse cast of animals, each account deals with a different aspect of our relationship with animals and what happens to it when there is war.
Before Nayar tells us the first story, she takes us on a journey with a timeline. We start with a story from World War 1 set in the United Kingdom, then move to stories from World War 2 from a few different places, as well as the Vietnam War and the Ukraine War. She closes her book with a list of references employed in her research. It was incredibly helpful placing the story in a real world context and understanding the elements of truth that she highlights with each story.
Nandini Nayar has been writing for children for 20 years about various topics and themes. The language she uses is succinct, simple, and engaging. She writes for various age groups and, although she mainly sticks to fiction, Nayar occasionally ventures into non-fiction. Mules that Fall From The Sky is a narrative non-fiction book. The narratives Nayar has created around the events of the story change in terms of how fictionalized they are. One story is completely fictionalized around true statistics of the dogs used by the British army, while another is a retelling of children saving their horse from being drafted.
While children and their relationship with animals are central to the whole book, not all of them feature children as characters. However, Nayar pairs two of her stories well. Both of them take place in Japan during the Second World War. “The Many Secrets of a Zoo” is told from a Japanese zookeeper’s perspective. He tells us about how the zookeepers carried out orders of the government to euthanize all the animals. The story about the two elephants and their starvation is grim, but Nayar does not stray away from it. She doesn’t sugar coat or shy away from the truth. However, this story is paired well with the next one. “No Elephants in the Zoo!” is about a little Japanese girl and her mission to see the elephants. Her letter to the city officials sets off a series of events that result in the Japanese government setting up special railway services for the children of the country to visit the elephants at the zoo. Having these narratives side by side gave us a fuller picture of what the same war was like for different people.
Through the accounts, there are different sides of the argument presented for zoos. Are they good or bad? “The Narsapuram Way” tells the story of the Madras Zoo and a kill order given for the animals that resided within it. While Nayar chooses to focus on the local villagers and their undercover effort to free the animals, several of them were killed. However, Nayar also writes about the Baghdad zoo, “The People at Baghdad Zoo.”About how it was restored and its occupants were saved through the efforts of a single man. While finding a stance on war is straightforward, doing so with zoos is murkier, considering it is one of those places we have all enjoyed at some point or another. Whether intentional or not, the collection of accounts opens out the conversation of animal captivity, ownership, and labor in more ways than one.
While her storytelling is straightforward, there are some inconsistencies. Each account changes voices and perspectives—from a narrator to a child’s fictional account centered around an actual event or facts and statistics. With the exception of the two chapters set in Japan, we felt a bit disconnected moving from one story to the next. With different animals, different time periods, and different locations, having the voice and perspective change made it seem like we were starting afresh every time. Children are reading about some of these historical events for the first time. The book has occasionally been described as a collection of vignettes, but this description isn’t consistent for each story. Most of the stories are contained within themselves and don’t blend into each other as vignettes do.
The last account of the book, Ritvik’s Diary of the Ukraine War, stands alone in format and perspective. Although centered around the Ukraine War, it takes place in India. A young boy learns about the war and its progression through the news and wonders about the animals—domestic, captive, or wild. He goes on a journey of research to find out more.
As pet owners, it was difficult to distance ourselves from the abuse that the animals experienced. “What Really Happened to Jack?” dives into the militant training dogs received in the British Army. “Mules That Fall From the Sky” highlights the extreme duress mules were put through in an active battlefield. Through all this, we are very present to the fact that most times, these animals do not make it home. They die. With Nayar’s matter-of-fact style, we wonder if this book is to be recommended with a trigger warning. Death is a dense topic that needs to be navigated carefully, especially with children. Some might seem okay with reading about it in its various forms but others stay away from stories dealing with animal death. In our conversations with parents and members of the library, books are avoided if the story revolves around animals that have gotten hurt and don’t have a happy ending of recovery. The sheer scale with which animals were used and killed brought up strong feelings. Ranging from anger to sadness, one of the things that stuck with us was the abuse the animals went through under the guise of “training.”
With only the cover credited to illustrator Ira Nagar, the illustrations within the stories seem lost and untraceable. There were no references for the illustrations used in the book and seems more of an afterthought. With the degree of fictionalization constantly changing, it is hard to tell if any of the illustrations reference the real life events, people, or animals Nayar attempts to uncover. References to what we were looking at as we made our way through the stories would have made this a richer read in terms of historical context and world building.
Although the accounts do not need to be read sequentially, they are in chronological order of the wars that took place. And while Nayar pays respect to the gravity of the topics and themes of the stories, the disconnection between accounts makes some chapters stand out more than others.
Other similar books by Nadini Nayar
- A Sailor Called Wet Paint, And Other Secret Stories From History. Published by Hachette India in 2023
- When Children Make History, A Tale of 1857. Published by MANGO in 2013.
- Are There Bun Shops in the Jungles of India, And Other Secret Stories from History. Published by Hachette India in 2023