Leland C May

World War II Through My Eyes as a Child Leland C May

World War II stories are often recorded through the experiences of soldiers who fought in this world changing event. Seldom, however, have the voices and experiences of the children been heard. Children, who had fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters go off to war, have a unique perspective on the years 1940-1945. Leland May, writing from almost seventy-five years after these events, recalls the physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences that engrained themselves in his life as a child during the war. What one experiences as child shapes a person the whole of his or her life. The author's context was the small Ozark town of Purdy, MO, a place of less than 500 folks in the 1940s. Each of the folks in this seemingly wide spot on the road, however, were touched by events half a world away. With sensitivity, humor, empathy, and pathos, the author captures the rough-hewn emotions of what it meant to be a child from the age of six to eleven during the years of World War II when the world was turned upside down.