Ten-year-old Pierrot is just another kid. For the time being, he grows with his younger brother Jeannot in a flat above "Le Café du Pont", run by his loving parents, a place that attracts all kinds of customers, from the farmer to the chimney sweeper, to the priest... On the whole, life is sweet, even if the Germans are becoming more and more nervous and uncontrollable, if Pierrot has become his sadistic schoolmaster's whipping-boy, if his Mum is so overworked that she sometimes gets all worked up... But is there actually anything more delightful than going angling with Daddy, picking mushrooms with Granny, picnicking with Daddy, Mummy and selected friends? Into the bargain, the Liberation at long last comes, with its accompanying joys and hopes. In the meantime, Pierrot garners happy remembrances, soaks up the humor of the regulars of his parents'café, starts playing an instrument, slowly blossoming into the great singer-poet-humorist Pierre Perret.—Guy Bellinger