Like a primrose which you must hold very near to find a frail, obstinate scent, this little autobiography [Little Eden: A Child at War] repays close reading. Without attention, you might miss its pale tearful charm altogether. After a start of phenomenal confusion, the author reveals that she spent 15 months in Cirencester, evacuated with her family to escape the blitz….

[With the] delicate, gooseflesh misgiving which pervades the prose, the personal narrative has been bulked out by war-time data dug from the local papers. The intrusion is often laughable. War Weapons Week, Knitting for Victory, even Double Summer Time and the Gloucestershire Farmers' Union protest threat—all meander among budding nipples and anguish in the basement lavatory….

Further padding is provided by local history….

True feeling returns in 1941, when Eva became a boarder at Arkenside. Exuding the scent of lime flower and Victorian mildew, this diminutive prep school...