This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The air raid sirens began wailing at 11:47 on the morning of September 7, 1940, sending eight-year-old Mary Thompson racing toward the Anderson shelter in her family's backyard in London's East End. She clutched her gas mask in one hand and her beloved teddy bear in the other, her small feet barely keeping pace with her mother's urgent stride. This scene, repeated countless times across war-torn Europe and beyond, marked the moment when childhood as previous generations had known it came to an abrupt end for millions of children.

World War II fundamentally altered the experience of growing up, transforming playgrounds into battlefields and nursery rhymes into air raid warnings. For six long years, children across the globe found themselves thrust into an adult world of unprecedented violence, uncertainty, and loss. Their stories, often overshadowed by accounts of military campaigns and political machinations, reveal perhaps the most profound and lasting impact of the war.

The conflict touched every aspect of children's lives, from the most basic needs of food and shelter to the complex emotional development that defines the journey from childhood to adulthood. In Britain, the Blitz turned bedtime into a nightly ritual of descent into Underground stations and backyard shelters. German children learned to distinguish between the drone of Allied bombers and the whistle of falling bombs. Japanese children practiced duck-and-cover drills while their fathers marched off to distant battlefields. Soviet children witnessed the siege of cities and the horror of occupation. American children collected scrap metal and bought war bonds with their allowances, while their older brothers shipped overseas.