MOTHER AND SON: The Wartime Correspondence

An extraordinarily moving book is comprised of the actual correspondence between a teenage boy and his mother. Two definite elements give it the particular flavor it has:- first, here is a picture of Japan during the war as experienced first in Tokyo, then in a country mountain village, by a sensitive boy and his mother, caught between the liberal point of view and traditional attitudes; second -- an unusual reflection of the many changes of adolescence. Hiroshima and Nagasaki take place during these years, the surrender of Japan, the months of rationing and always the immediate sense of devotion and close family relationship. Already a best seller in Japan, American youth will find it provocative.