THE TIME OF OUR LIVES

There's definite charm, credibility and possibilities in this unusual record kept by a French girl of fourteen, who wrote the record of the family adventures-1940-44. It is a report from the new generation, the young refugees of this war, to whom new homes, constant moving, the adventure of new places and people, brought useful anodyne for the tragedies they saw and heard and even experienced. Her family- in May 1940, migrated from their home at Le Marais, to Limoges, to Marseilles, to Lyon, to a farm near St. Tropez, and back to Paris and their real home. Never impoverished, they encountered some of the enchantment of travel, with a trailer, in a variety of adopted homes, interrupted studies. There were four sisters and a mother and the faithful Bertine. They meet Herriot; the aunt has a baby; other refugees join forces with them; they are sabotaged by a villainous gardener, they have a desperate time getting enough food; they pick up their schooling when they return to Paris and learn the tricks of living in an occupied city; they turn out to be good scavengers.... They await the Allied invasion, welcome the first American troops, and get back to Paris while it is in process of liberation... Immediate memories- unattended by adult reservations- of youthful zest in change, in coping with the unexpected; an intimate picture of French family life and a new angle on a refugee story of German occupation.