Tove knows that she is a loser and that her childhood was made for a completely different girl, who would have had it just right. She is fascinated by her red-haired friend Ruth, who lives next door and knows all the secrets of the adult world. But Tove never really tells her or anyone else about himself because others can’t stand “the songs in my heart and the garlands of words in my soul.” She knows that she has a calling and that one day she will inevitably have to leave the narrow street of her childhood. Childhood is the first part of the "Copenhagen trilogy" and reads like a stand-alone educational novel. This is a book about growing up, family, friendship, ambition and purpose, full of emotional insights and irony.