Tamie Hoshiko is just six years old when her father, Shizuwo, dies in Kumamoto City, Japan, in 1938. As her father takes his last breath, he instructs Tamie, the oldest child, to always take care of her twenty-four-year-old mother, Tome who is left to raise four children.

Tragedy strikes again in December of 1941 when Tamie is nine years old. War has once again come to Japan. She and her family experience severe food shortages, air raids, bombings, and even being shot at from fighter airplanes. She loses neighbors and friends to this war. It is a very hard life for such a young girl to...