When the World Was Young

By: Elizabeth Gaffney

Narrated by: Caitlin Davies

Wally Baker is no ordinary girl. Living in her grandparents' Brooklyn Heights brownstone, she doesn't like dresses, needlepoint, or manners. Her love of Wonder Woman comics and ants makes her feel like a misfit - especially in the shadow of her dazzling but unstable mother, Stella. Acclaimed author Elizabeth Gaffney's irresistible novel captures postwar Brooklyn through Wally's eyes, opening on V-J day, as she grows up with the rest of America. Reeling from her own unexpected wartime tragedy and navigating an increasingly fraught landscape, Wally is forced to confront painful truths about the world - its sorrows, its prejudices, its conflicts, its limitations. But Wally also finds hope and strength in the unlikeliest places. With an unforgettable cast of characters, Elizabeth Gaffney crafts an immersive, beautifully realized novel about the truths that divide and the love that keeps us together.

©2014 Elizabeth Gaffney (P)2014 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A smart coming-of-age tale that upends a raft of Greatest Generation clichés." ( Kirkus

sometimes cute, often tired, too much allegory

I wanted to like this novel. WWII and an interracial friendship among kids in the city--sign me up! The story is sometimes cute, which I don't consider a compliment, but I give points to anyone who attempts to write from a child's perspective for an adult audience and sometimes pulls off a strong scene. Overall, the writing is pretty clunky, and too much time is spent on the kids' ant farm. We get it; we're all living in our own ant farms with tunnels and twists to the narrative, and we know our personal ant farms will fall and break and everything will require reorganizing. I didn't feel the emotions and perspectives reorganizing as they should if we're spending nine hours with the characters. The world, in short, does not become new or young in this story--it all just gets a little jumbled, then old and tired and detached, and our own interest inevitably fades (at least mine did). I don't think I'll remember this novel.