Tomie dePaola reveals some details of his boyhood while growing up in Connecticut during WWII. Young readers will experience the grown and development of an artist and feel the frustrations he felt from being so different. A sensative child who loved drawing, dancing and writing in his diary, he copes with the death of a favorite cousin, bullying by a brother and school mates as well as mishaps in preparation for the dance recital.. For the Duration is a biographical sketch it isjust a few months of second graders life growing up in an Italian and Catholic family during the 1940's.