"The experiences of childhood remain some of the strongest memories throughout life, and many writers have drawn on them in their adult years to create stories that are vivid, evocative and often deeply moving." "The contributors to this book include some of the greatest names in twentieth-century Irish writing. Seamus Heaney, Samuel Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Roddy Doyle, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, Bryan MacMahon, Sean O'Faolain, Liam O'Flaherty, Neil Jordan, Maeve Binchy and Brendan Behan are just a few of the illustrious authors who draw on their memories of infancy, schooldays and adolescence. Their stories cover backgrounds as disparate as rural villages and crowded city streets; they evoke the long-remembered pains of injustice, real or imagined, the nostalgia of golden summer afternoons, the first yearnings of adolescence and the pranks and squabbles of family life." "The settings of these stories are unmistakably Irish, but for all readers, whether Irish or not, they will reawaken the emotions and memories of their own childhood days, from the years of innocence to the lessons of experience. This is a book to dip into or to read straight through: either way it is a haunting collection that will draw the reader back into a world of heightened senses, when everything was possible and the future was rich with promise."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved