The great illustrator Tomi Ungerer’s memoir of his childhood during World War II.

A touching and richly illustrated portrait of the artist as a young boy.

Tomi Ungerer is nine years old when German troops occupy Alsace in 1940. His French speaking teachers are replaced by Germans. German becomes the official language, with French banned under threat of strict penalties. Little Jean-Thomas, known by everyone as Tomi, becomes Hans, who now has to write in Sutterlin script at school.

Nothing ever gets thrown away in the Ungerer family – and so all the school exercise books and pictures Tomi drew as a child are still around. Even as a small boy, he captured everything he saw and that touched him in drawings.

Using these pictures and documents, Tomi Ungerer tells the story of his everyday life in German-occupied Alsace, of the war and liberation. And he writes about the perfectly normal tricks, fun and games and experiences of a boy growing up.

An incredibly lively memoir.