Book excerpt: Donnie and Jean was a time of great transition for our nation, one in which there was no television, and radio and Hollywood were the main sources of both entertainment and news defining what would later be called "The Great Generation." Comic books and the funny papers were war oriented and children were ready to defend America against all invaders; while adults fought the war, children played at war. Donnie and Jean is more than a story of two twelve year old children meeting and beginning to learn what it is to love; they were born into a generation that epitomized the best of what America was during that era when the leaders of America were trusted, when teachers and police were the friends of children. In many ways it was an age of innocence lost and not to be recovered, but recalled here in the story of these two children.