Genie Watkins, a Birmingham kid, dreams of having a proper happy family like her Italian friend, Teresa. But it's August 1939. Genie hasn't reckoned with the outbreak of war, her already rocky family being split up and the strangely liberating effect it all has on her mother. Narrated in the cheeky, courageous voice of Genie, the disasters that follow display her powerful capacity for survival. Under skies darkened by blackout she tries to hold her family together, keeps up her spirits with her nan and glamorous auntie Lil, shares her fears and hopes with Teresa and amid it all discovers love... Family life seems set to be destroyed as violently as the city streets around them. But from the rubble come *extraordinary surprises, glimpses of hope - and, above all, a miraculous resilience.