This entire series is a wonderful way to learn history or teach it to adolescents. I find today's generations seem to recall more when they learn through other people (pop songs, celebrity gossip, etc.), so what better way to teach history than through someone else's perspective? Yes, "authentic" diaries would be "better", but would the language really hold the modern student's attention? Did the diary writer know what WOULD be important in the context of history? Probably not.

This is a very well done series, featuring young men in the thick of action. In this book, Harry Woods is a pilot for the RAF. The characters are very human: they fight for their families and friends; they fly for the pleasure of flying; they realize that there are no "good" or "bad" guys. It takes a series of events to make them understand their role in something that is so much bigger than them. The encounter with the German pilot is certainly idealized, but I think important to show the absurdity of the war - yes fighting for freedom is necessary, but it is always individuals who end up paying for it, and there is not much glory in that. I'm looking forward to the rest of the other novels. ( )

This is told by Harry Woods, who at 18, is the oldest of the My Story main characters that I have read. Harry has always wanted to be a pilot much to the disgust of his doctor father. It is 1939 and Harry enlists in the RAF ready to fight against the Germans. He soon becomes an accomplished pilot and competes in many dogfights - his Spitfire against the Messcherschmidts and the huge bombers of the Luftwaffe. He notices that all the pilots tap a quiet pilot called Lenny on the shoulder before they take off and finds out it is because they believe Lenny has extra "luck" after his plane fell out of the sky and landed in a pile of manure and he walked away unscathed. Harry doesn't believe in this superstition but soon becomes friends with Lenny anyway. Then the Germans change tack and start bombing London, and Harry now flies to protect his sister and parents who live in the path of the bombs.

Describes what the life of a young pilot in the RAF was like in WWII. ( )