This innovative book reveals children's experiences and how they became victims and actors during the twentieth century's biggest conflicts.

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA

The celebrated writer reminisces about his boyhood in Michigan at the turn of the century.

Bohdan Hryniewicz was only 8 when war broke out and 13 when it ended. In those years he saw more than most men would in 10 lifetimes; and his recall is extraordinary. He cites three days as defining this period: the saddest, 19 September 1939 as Russian tanks rolled into his home town of Wilno; the happiest, August 1 1944, when the Polish flag flew once again from the highest building in Warsaw; the most bitter, October 3 that year, when his commanding officer forbade him to join the other members of his battalion as they entered a prisoner of war camp. His story is uniquely personal and at the same time tells the wider story of a pivotal battle that was virtually unheard of until the fall of communism.

Bohdan Hryniewicz was only 8 when war broke out and 13 when it ended. In those years he saw more than most men would in 10 lifetimes; and his recall is extraordinary. He cites three days as defining this period: the saddest, 19 September 1939 as Russian tanks rolled into his home town of Wilno; the happiest, August 1 1944, when the Polish flag flew once again from the highest building in Warsaw; the most bitter, October 3 that year, when his commanding officer forbade him to join the other members of his battalion as they entered a prisoner of war camp. The Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days and was the largest single military effort by any resistance movement in the war. Throughout, Bohdan was the personal runner of lieutenant Nalecz, CO of the battalion of the same name. Betrayed by Stalin, all the Poles were expelled to camps after surrender and the city dynamited. Bohdan is probably the last witness to this tragedy.

John Hodgkins was eight years old when his father was drafted into the army and left for Europe for fight in WWII. After his return, his father never spoke much of the war. After his father's death, John opened his father's diary and two boxes of memorabilia.