Paulsen's account of his first seven years contains material that is suitable for mature adolescents. He occasionally uses the profanity common to adults under stress. He witnesses much havoc wrought by the war: shattered Manilla buildings, corpses of Japanese soldiers, wrecked planes, and ruined tanks. He describes frankly his growing awareness of his mother's relationships with other men and his own sexual initiation with Maria.

Paulsen's style, however, is never sensational. Profanity is used rarely and in context. The gruesome results of war or accident are never horrific; Paulsen includes only those details that communicate the narrator's reaction of fear, sadness, or bewilderment. The passages about sexuality are not meant to titillate; rather they emphasize the narrator's sense of lost innocence and regret for a too-early initiation into one of adulthood's secrets.

Paulsen intends to be thoroughly honest about the events of eighteen months that were...