Two Children's Stories

For one of the Middle East run student groups, we read two short stories, The Day of Ahmed's Secret, and Sami and the Time of Troubles. Both were written by team Florence Parry Heide & Judith Heide Gilliland and illustrator Ted Lewin, yet each is very distinct in tone and message.
The first of the two, The Day of Ahmed's Secret, is more a tool than a story. It follows the daily routine of a young boy named Ahmed who has a secret that he is very excited to share with his family. In the end, it turns out to be that he can write his name, but the important part of the story is given to us on the preceding pages. We see the sort of work that he does, the area where he lives, and while it is not a placeholder for every Cairo child, the reader gets the idea that it applies to at least some of the population.
The latter story is a lot darker, dealing with war in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Sami is a young boy who has to spend most of his day in the basement due to gunfire and bombing. We get a glimpse at the casualties of war not shown on the news, the murder of a childhood that should be spend laughing and playing instead of hiding in thick shelters for fear of death. The most chilling and telling scene in this book though is when we see Sami and his friend playing war, discussing when they will get real guns someday...
In class we talked about how the illustrations could be seen as "Arabland-esque," and how the stories should be taken with a grain of salt as only Ted Lewin had been to the Middle East, but at the same time I feel like the latter story might be a good thing to show children, to give them an idea that war isn't right. That said, I don't think either of these should be given to kids alone, but should be included with modern images of Cairo (or at the very least, point out to kids all the cars and whatnot.)