All Those Wars — Gloria Montero

Set in a small town in tropical Australia and narrated by the child Rora, the seven stories of 'All Those Wars' evoke new and surprising facets of dramatic events from the first half of the Twentieth Century -- the two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War. Rora's stories throw into bold relief an assortment of displaced characters: the rueful veteran of Gallipoli; the flamboyant Elvala and Nando, come from Italy to build a new life; the Polish count who studied piano with Paderewski; the wise circus dwarfs; Jimmy, the aborigine yardman at the Convent; the Irish and Italian families who own the sugar cane farms around the town; Rora's own family, immigrants from northern Spain. As the child astutely assesses the people about her, she begins to see life itself as something of a war.