This remembrance restores to life, with humor, grit and magic, a New York neighborhood of World War II patriotism and baseball. Readers will feel as if they're in the bakery, eating cake and eavesdropping. With recipes."This tale of Bronx life circa the '30s and '40s teems with wonderful characters striving to bring order and meaning into their often-chaotic lives. The author came of age in an extended secular Jewish family dependent on his father's bakery. His father's struggles to make the bakery a success resulted in interesting encounters, such as that with a venal Communist labor boss who threatened to ruin the bakery if the father failed to reduce bread prices. Korman limns affectionate portraits of family members, especially his mentally challenged uncle, Maxie, who could sell only one product in the bakery but who found the courage to stand up to a bully. Korman reminds modern readers how Jewish baseball star Hank Greenberg granted every American Jewish boy a sense of dignity. Other indelible personalities include the Presbyterian minister Leslie Turner, who played a vital role in spiriting a Korman family relative out of Nazi Germany. A well-told piece of American ethnic history". Mark Knoblauch BOOKLIST