This is a true story.

In 1935, the years she was born, Maria Gargano's family moves from Italy to Libya, where her dad is stationed as a marshal major in Mussolini's army. As WWII breaks, they repatriate to Florence, an "open city" (supposedly protected from war time aggression).

Maria remembers, vividly, living as a child under the Fascist regime and the unrelenting bombing of the city. She recounts, in first-person, the gripping horrors of the war and how her family managed to survive. She underpins her personal memories with excerpted historical writing and news papers clipping of the time(often translated into English, herself, from her native Italian.)

Her story includes lively anecdotes from her Catholic elementary school and Fascism-influenced public high school education in Florence. After the war, she ventures, (or rather adventures) as a young adult into working as an au-pair nanny in London and on the French Riviera, while continuing her studies in English and French. (She speaks four languages.)

In France, she meets an American G.I. and follows him to California. They marry in 1961. Always resilient, Maria pushes through the culture shock, raises her family of three boys, and earns a teaching credential from San Diego State University.

Her compelling story moves fast and the more one reads, the more we admire her determination to achieve a productive and fascinating life.