On 1st August 1914, on the outbreak in Germany of the First World War, the twelve-year-old German girl Piete Kuhr began a diary. Initially enthusiastic about the war, she was soon horrified by the suffering of all the nations involved and developed a deep longing for peace. Her style of writing, at first almost childishly simple, but gradually displaying the gifts which characterised her later work under the pen-name of Jo Mihaly, conveys a vivid picture of school and family life amid the changing fortunes of war. Her eventful life as an adult caused her to forget the diary until she found it many years later among her brother's papers after his death. Thus it was not until 1982 that it was published, having aroused from the publisher's reader the following comment: "I have received a manuscript to review, the like of which has never before come into my hands: an authentic schoolgirl's diary of the first World War. It's a historical document and at the same time a human kaleidoscope."
