Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Library Journal Review: Berg (Open House) has done a spot-on job of researching the World War II years; she hardly misses a beat. She focuses on the Chicago Heaneys, a loving family enduring the tumultuous years of 1943?46. USO dances, pin curls, V-mail, food rationing, and newsreels figure prominently in this romantic story of the three Heaney sisters, nicknamed the "Dreamy Girls." Eldest Kitty, front and center, is unlike her younger sisters. Searching for more than a husband, she attempts to make her own contribution to the war effort by entering the aircraft industry and is one of the few local young women to do so. As the war rages on, Kitty begins to have her doubts about the future. Closing in on Kitty and her sisters' frivolities, innocence, and adjustment to loss, Berg also sheds light on the nation's acclimation to war. The Heaneys' warmth and love are integral to Berg's portrait, as is a 1940s Chicago that includes streetcars, Marshall Fields, the Palmer House, and summers on Lake Michigan. Yet while the evolving era and the family's intimacies are painstakingly presented, the conclusion is rushed and thus compromised. Nevertheless, this is a good purchase for public libraries, especially where Berg is popular. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/07.]?Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.