In 1945, at age seven, author Paulsen and his mother traveled to battle-scarred Manila to join his father, a military officer who had been absent from Paulsen's life since before World War II. Here, Paulsen vividly chronicles the high adventure of a boy's journey by car from Chicago to San Francisco, his voyage across the Pacific, and his arrival in the Philippines, a feat accomplished in large part by his mother's willing and serviceable promiscuity. Although Paulsen's memory is so vivid that credibility is sometimes strained, his memoir is wonderfully readable. The book is also an interesting portrait of adults as viewed by a child from whom little of the adult world is hidden. Paulsen's prose, usually exercised in novels for young adults, is colorful but unadorned; his story is overfull of drama.