A whale falls in love with a military submarine, and dies courting her; a mother caught in a fire following a bombing gives all her body's water to save her son, and her desiccated form turns into a kite; a wolf rescues a sick child abandoned by her parents, only to die himself at the hand of men. However, bunkers can also become real homes, a small Japanese girl and an American POW briefly understand each other and a miraculous tree feeds starving children...
This is war, no doubt, but told by someone who understands how children truly experience war and its aftermath - the bombings and parents' deaths, the life of orphans who roam the streets, the starvation and blind violence in a society beyond destruction.
Akiyuki Nosaka remembers what it was like to be a child caught in war-torn Japan in 1945, and he retells his experiences in this collection of powerful and beautifully expressive stories for children.