Morally and metaphorically, my book is about the 97 pound weakling who sticks a needle into the guy who once kicked sand in his face - saving his life !

In every book I have ever read about WWII , the small (4F)(unfit) (weak) get deadly sand kicked in their face by big bullies --- at home* as well as abroad --- for six long years.

Cumulatively, it makes for truly depressing reading.

(*Eileen Welsome's book The Plutonium Files describes just a few of the unspeakably evil medical experiments that American wartime researchers practised on their own unwitting "useless mouths" and "unfits".)

But I think there is one exception:

The unlikely triumph of a small group of American 'unfits' who defied both Allied and Axis Eugenicists  (and their own physical failings) to bring us the blessings of cheap, abundant Penicillin-for-All .

All : Alpha-Betas as well as Nerds.

It is that distinct rarity in WWII literature ------- an inspiring Good News Story from the bad news war .

A school musical for freaks, geeks, nerds, losers, misfits , the terminally uncool and the terminally shy

All the kids up on stage in way too many high school, college or Sunday school musicals are the same kids that run (ruin ?) the rest of school life.

You know the ones .

All they of the conventionally smart mind, faces neatly symmetrical & teeth gleaming white, from a family with money, physical fit and socially attractive and exhibiting a very successful love life.

My musical will be different - it is a sort of a "Revenge of the Nerds" but on a much, much higher moral plane and based upon a true story from WWII.

(I know - I know - won't the social studies department just love that !)