Childhood at Oriol

Originally published in a very limited printing in England in 1951, this enchanting rediscovery is set in a small villa among the dunes of Le Toquet. It is the story of two energetic, mischievous and sensitive children and their encounters with a privileged set of adult visitors who are in Normandy for the season and who could well have stepped out of a novel by P.G. Wodehouse. This magical novel, which takes place between two world wars, will remind readers of Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle" and Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals." Michael Burn will be 95 when "Childhood at Oriol" is released. As a reporter for "The Times," he covered both the abdication of Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, and the faked Hungarian trial of Cardinal Mindszenty.