Synopsis
During World War II, real news is a rare commodity in the hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas. But twelve-year-old Dawny - inspired by his hero Ernie Pyle - finds enough local color to keep the townsfolk reading his weekly newspaper, The Stay Morning Star. Dawny reports on the war between the 'Allies' and the 'Axis'; two roving bands of boys and girls fighting with sticks and spears, competing in scrap drives and verbal jousts. But the tenor of these games changes as developments bring the world's war closer to home: the crackle of the town's first radio delivers frightening news from the outside world to the isolated village, and a native son dies on Iwo Jima. For the first time ever, an airplane darkens the skies over Stay More, and soldiers occupy the remote hills in training for an invasion of Japan. As the ways of outsiders creep into the small town's routines, the texture of rural life is irrevocably changed.
Amanda Heller
From log cabin to mobile home is six generations: such is the story of Stay More, an imaginary but probably typical enough town in the Arkansas Ozarks. . . . Harington is a versatile parodist with a zany sense of humor which he aims at anthropology, textbook history, the folk tale, and much else besides. -- The Atlantic Monthly