I really enjoyed this book written by a woman who was a young girl when her father was captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong. I am amazed at how good her memory is of the events that occurred so many years ago. She was probably helped by the fact that her father and mother kept all the letters they sent during that time period but even so I don't remember all my teachers' names from when I was in Grade School. Mrs. Owen obviously has a prodigious memory.

Margaret, her younger siblings, Barbara and Roger, and their mother Lucy continued to live in their house on Dorchester Avenue in the Crescentwood area of Winnipeg while Margaret's father was away. Lucy seems to have managed very well in what had to have been difficult circumstances. Of course, family and friends helped out. At one point Lucy was so overwhelmed with offers of help from men in that neighbourhood that she had to schedule them to do parts of chores so no-one would be slighted.

It was really interesting to read about places that are familiar to me, like Cornish Library, and to learn that past the corner of Corydon Avenue and Wilton Street there was only open prairie. Now it is a settled neighbourhood and there is very little prairie except for some that has been preserved.

I think anyone who grew up in Winnipeg or anyone interested in history would enjoy this book. ( )