Appreciations

“All Things Bright and Beautiful” the children sing as they bury their dead pets in a mass grave off the Bubbling Well Road. They are preparing for their own internment by the Japanese. Like that hymn and that moment, this bittersweet and beautifully crafted memoir of a childhood in old Shanghai during the Second World War stays with you long after you have turned the last page.

Modris Eksteins, author of the prize-winning Rites of Spring and Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II and the Heart of Our Century, and Professor of History, University of Toronto.