Alex Stewart has written a story of brothers who went to war and of a family at home whose lives were forever changed by that war a book for succeeding generations to experience the values by which post-Depression era America lived. Pictures on the Piano is an "epic tale of war and peace and ordinary lives dislocated by extraordinary circumstances," writes Nona Hengen, the cover artist, who holds a Master"s degree in History and a Ph.D. in Education. It is "an heroic war story and a tender love story." The Stewarts, of Chicago, were a closely knit family, Hengen notes, who lived "by faith rather than fear in the most troubling times, meeting crises with uncommon courage, facing evil tidings with unshakeable serenity, and unspeakable tragedy with quiet dignity." Stewart describes his growing up in Chicago during the "roaring twenties" and "dirty thirties," a warm remembrance of the time. The book "brims" with tales of World War II combat proud successes and honest failures where Stewart served as a B-25 pilot attached to the 12th Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater of War. Stewart flew 63 combat missions in the B-25 Mitchell and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with seven Oak Leaf Clusters. "What will make it linger in memory and reserve its place among the many excellent accounts of combat and tales of valor told by veterans of World War II is Stewart"s unusual ability to not only describe these events in all their sound and fury and authenticity as he experienced them, but his gift of articulating the range and depth of the powerful emotions the events engendered in expressions to and among members of his family and to his beloved as the war progresses." "From . . . the Stewart clan there emerges a rich tapestry of affection, tenderness, passion, and sensibility . . . interwoven into a fabric of encouragement, faith, and love. . . ." Stewart"s "odyssey" awaits the reader in Pictures on the Piano. There won"t be "a dry eye in the house"!