Summer of the Zeppelin Author:Elsie McCutcheon In May 1918 in the small Suffolk village of Frissington St. Peter. Through a classroom window twelve-year-old Elvira Preston has watched uneasily, every day for months. grey row of German prisoners hoeing the nearby drought-parched cornfields. Before the War, it was her father who guided the horse-hoe over those fields. He has been gone for thre... more »e years now, fighting across the English Channel, and Elvira is miserable without him. She longs to escape from the talk of War, loathesome headmaster, her endless chores, and, most of all, her stepmother, Rhoda, who only pays attention to Elvira's baby brother and is never satisfied no matter how hard Elvira tries to please her.« less