Tito's Little Pioneer: Growing Up in Yugoslavia

by Ester Elliott

What did daily life look like in a socialist country in the 1960’s? This memoir is a collection of true stories told from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl. In a country where everyone had to work to ‘build a better future together,’ she was determined to earn good grades because it was her ‘job’ to learn. During the early school years she wanted to know the rules for proper greetings, the meaning of communion, what made a good gift, and answers to hundreds of other questions. No matter how well she followed the rules, she still got in trouble. What was right at home was sometimes wrong in school and vice versa. When the adults tried to keep up a facade of political correctness, the child’s wisdom served as an ultimate guide to find true answers. Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore. These stories are a reminder that in each grown-up there is the vanished world of a child and the best thing we could do is remember that child-like wisdom which always recognizes the truth.

205 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 11, 2016