Overview

War is hell. Especially for families with children living in big cities where the bombs fall and food is scarce. Fathers are drafted into military service and mothers are active on the home-front. There may be long lulls from the bombings, and the kids can go to school and play with their friends. But the food is getting scarce and the kids become skinny. And then, suddenly, much larger bomb attacks strike the city bringing devastation to the neighborhood. In desperation many parents decide to have their children evacuated to a safe neighboring country. And when the war finally ends, most kids will return home within a month or two. But some may stay longer maybe because the parents doubt that the armistice will hold or the food supply improve. My parents opted to play it safe. They also had the impression that we were happy in our safe haven. But my sister and I missed our Mamma and our friends tremendously and wanted to come home. We could not understand why we had to stay away when other kids were sent back home. We resented it and began to loath our Pappa, who, we knew, was behind the decision. It lead to a cold war within the family lasting several years. But over time we all matured, I probably most in need of it, and we were able to become a close-knit family again. Pappa's special efforts to win my heart when I turned 18 changed everything as did, after many setbacks, my improved performance at school and on the dancing floor. Upon his retirement, John Sundgren, a former IMF economist, had plans to write about his many and often adventurous missions to developing countries. And that will be his next project, he hopes. But before that, he wants to break the silence of his generation and tell his children and grandchildren about the not so good old days he experienced growing up in Finland. He wants them to know how devastating war can be for a family. It can even trigger in children a lack of trust in grown-ups and their world. He tries to show, from a boy's perspective, why parents and teachers can be seen as enemies, and what it takes to remedy the mistakes, or perceived mistakes, parents have made, even though their intentions were to protect the child. And for a parent, such open hostility, exhibited by one's child, must be hard to take. But the author also wants to show that during the lulls from bombings, the kids still found ways to have fun with their friends.

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9781478782216

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