My Faraway Home: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines

I learned about this book from my high school alumni web page and read it mostly out of curiousity. A fascinating book, a coming-of-age tale of a young girl in wartime. I so appreciated the author's skillful melding of her childish observations and her retrospective adult understanding of this difficult period of her life. She unflinchingly, and often humorously, describes the colonial prejudices of her parents and other Americans in their small community, their condescension toward Filipinos and Filipino-American mestizos, the tensions arising from a basic incompatibility between her parents, their strained relations with other fugitives from the war, and even a sexual assault. What makes the book so special, beyond its extraordinary tale, is the author's mature and sensitive handling of the subject matter. She owns up to her own failings and seeks to understand and forgive those of others, without condoning bad behavior. As an expatriate child in the Philippines (more than 20 years ago), I too felt superior to and made fun of the locals and am now heartily ashamed of it. Just as it took age and distance to fully appreciate my family, I can now admit to my love for the Philippines and her peoples. Our situations were so different, nevertheless McKay's words resonated strongly for me and inspire me to seek to develop even a fraction of her graciousness.I highly recommend this book.

Mary McKay Maynard's "My Faraway Home" is an adventure tale written in clear, elegant prose. I read this book three weeks into the current military action in Central Asia; it served as a tonic from an earlier time when issues, and enemies, were much more clearly defined.McKay writes with an artist's eye, providing many visual details of her family's months in the jungles of the Phillippines, hiding out from Japanese invaders. Her depiction of her parents, two mismatched people who grew closer in their struggles to survive and to nurture their daughter, is both clear-eyed and loving. She also brings to life the other people in her young life, fellow Americans and the native Filipinos who were generous to them. She writes of the tropic foods they ate in order to save her father's "iron rations"---canned goods. She takes us through a child's growing awareness of social and political realities, of the danger and austerities faced by Americans who were trying to "wait out" the war in Far East. McKay writes without a trace of self-pity, and invokes in us an admiration for the grit of her family and their friends. The author's picture shows us an attractive woman who still looks remarkably young, with that wonderful Scottish skin that wears so well.

Mary McKay Maynard has written a delightful chronicle, though it might seems strange to use the word "delightful" to describe a story about survival in the jungles of the Philippines. From the very beginning, the creative imagery invited me to feel the time, the place and the experience of her journey. It reminded me of the importance of seeing life through the eyes of a child who sees truth and beauty in any situation."It hadn't taken long for a seven-year-old to figure out that evacuation meant leaving a familiar life at a jungle goldmine where the days followed one after another in calm procession, where cicadas sang all day long in the heat and where the wak-wak cried out in the jungle night."I am a psychotherapist, and was taken by many philosphical and psychological messages -- they made me stop to ponder. Here are two among many: "I was having fun and was learning what the Filipinos were learning in the lowlands. You can win against stronger forces by pretending to be stupid." And, "I looked then to my mother, but she couldn't see me. It was the worst of news for me. I learned then that there are situations that no one has the power to change. My parents could not change their fate, nor could they change mine. Even though they loved me and would take care of me, there could be things beyond their control. I was alone with my life and could not alwyas be safe."My Faraway Home is a fascinating adventure and adds to my admittedly weak knowledge of history.

An enlightening story about Americans caught up and stranded in the jungle on Mindanao, the southernmost, large island of the Philippines at the start of WWII, My Faraway Home is told through the eyes of a young girl from the intellect of an adult woman. Touching excerpts from Mary McKay Maynard's mother's diary weave in and out of this tale of a group of Americans in a jungle hideaway using every survival skill they have to live their lives with some sort of order. Descriptions of the way life was back then and the beauty of the country are a special visit to a time that is no more. The slowness of day to day living eventually leads to as fine an adventure as any escape story provides. Off to a slow start with one day rather like the next, I became enchanted and pulled into the story so that I could not put it down and stayed up until 3 am reading it until it was done. Yes, I liked it.

I enjoyed this book. It was interesting to read about this experience through the eyes of a child and then have a her mother's jounal quoted, so that you also had the mother's view. My heart went out to the whole family, because they didn't know where thier oldest child was, or if he was even alive and they still had to fight to keep themselves together in order to survive this ordeal. The father at first I thought of as very hard and uncaring person, but after reading the book I realized that he really had the best interest of all in mind. The experience from living in a nice home to living in the jungle with almost none of what we call bare essentials is amazing. How they learn to survive just made me respect them so much. I couldn't put the book down it was such an exciting read. The only thing better would be is to have it made into a movie.