Autobiography by the author of "Emil", detailing his childhood in Dresden and giving behind the scenes insight as to how some of the most famous children's books came to be written. "When I Was a Little Boy begins with a lament for Dresden: "I was born in the most beautiful city in the world. Even if your father, child, was the richest man in the world, he could not take you to see it, because it does not exist any more. (...) In a thousand years was her beauty built, in one night was it utterly destroyed."