The Picture Paints a Portrait: A Teenage Girl in the Shadow of War

The Picture opens on Maggie McGee Winters's 80th birthday. In her bedroom, Maggie nostalgically looks through her 50-year-old hope chest. Her granddaughter Katie joins her, and for the first time Katie shows interest in her grandmother's history. They decide to collaborate on a book. We flash back to Maggie McGee turning 16 and becoming old enough to date, but she views her romances as harmless, frivolous games. She makes five pictures for her boyfriends, and we follow the pictures as they get carried off to college and even overseas, where they become lifelines for boys fighting a huge war far from home. We see Maggie grow up as the pictures affect the lives of those she's touched. We are drawn into a nearly forgotten era when dating still included dances, summer picnics, and weekend events at colleges, and we watch Maggie bloom into a responsible young woman as World War II alters life drastically for everyone.