Hazel’s idyllic childhood is torn apart by the bombing of Rangoon. The Japanese armies overrun Burma, forcing the family to move from one refuge to another. Hazel’s father, a Muslim, and her mother, a Catholic, fears for her children. Told through a childs eyes, this story tells of a family’s travails during the darkest days of enemy occupation.

This is the first volume in Hazel’s memoirs and is followed by The Sides of Heaven.