War girls: a collection of First World War stories through the eyes of young women

War girls: a collection of First World War stories through the eyes of young women (Andersen Press, 2014)

Nine stories by Theresa Breslin, Melvin Burgess, Berlie Doherty, Anne Fine, Adele Geras, Mary Hooper, Rowena House, Sally Nicholls and Matt Whyman.

259 pages

Subjects: World War One, women in war, short stories, junior fiction (Years 6-10)

Synopsis

The back blurb says that “this collection of short stories explores how the First World War changed and shaped the lives of women for ever… Some of today’s leading writers for young people present moving portraits of loss and grief, and of hope overcoming terrible odds.” (There isn’t any other information inside about how the authors were chosen, and what inspired them in turn to choose their topic.)

Everyone will have their own favourites, but these are the stories:

Shadow and light by Theresa Breslin

Merle, an aspiring artist, and her friend Grace join the British Red Cross to drive ambulances for the Scottish Women’s Hospital for Foreign Service – staffed entirely (doctors, nurses, cooks and ambulance drivers) by women. She has some spiky run-ins with a golden-haired English captain who doesn’t realise she can understand his comments in French about women in war. Together they get caught up in the middle of the German advance near Albert.

Ghost story by Matt Whyman

Some Allied soldiers said they came under fire from female Turkish snipers at Gallipoli – could that be true?

Storm in a teacup by Mary Hooper

16 year old Harriet isn’t old enough to be a nurse and doesn’t want to work in a factory, so she gets a job as a waitress at the Lyons’ Corner House on the Strand in London and stumbles across a spy ring. This seemed a little far-fetched, but I liked the setting because my mother lived in London as a young woman and always had a soft spot for Lyons’ Corner Houses.

The marshalling of Angelique’s geese by Rowena House

Angelique is 14 and lives in a French village; her father has just been killed and her brother is away at the war as well.  She goes on a long and adventurous journey (with the geese!) trying to raise money to pay off her father’s debts. Her journey is also linked to the spread of Spanish flu – or one theory about its possible origins.

Mother and Mrs Everington by Melvin Burgess

Effie’s brother Robbie signs up underage and comes back with shellshock. She learns to drive and forges a letter so she can get to France as a nurse and driver, thinking he is just a weakling, but then finds out for herself - in an unexpected way - how terrible it is to be caught under shellfire.

Sky dancer by Berlie Doherty

Kate’s young man Fred joins the Royal Flying Corps and goes to France. Obviously that’s not going to end well (and it doesn’t). Kate wants to follow him - “just to breathe the air that Fred breathed” - and, despite her shyness, signs up for a concert party to entertain the troops. I found this to be an unusual, sad and memorable story.

Piercing the veil by Anne Fine

During the war, there was increased interest in spiritualism as people (especially mothers) tried to get in contact with the dead - but Alice’s father is a minister and doesn’t believe in such things.  

The green behind the glass by Adele Geras

Sarah and her sister, a fiancé and a forbidden love and a ghostly warning.

Going spare by Sally Nicholls

Set in 1977; the 14 year old narrator finds out from Miss Frobisher upstairs about what life was like (quite exciting, in her case) for the "leftover women" who never married after WW1.

Reviews:

The review in the Guardian says: “War Girls is like no other WW1 fiction I have read before. It does not focus on the trenches, the tragic battle of the Somme nor the brave men who fought. The book combines a mixture of exceptionally written, heart-wrenching short stories into a book about the lives of the women left behind.”

The Bookbag says it is an “utterly engrossing” anthology with “not a weak story among them”.  

About the authors

Author biographies at the end tell you a bit about each author.

Some interesting backstory here by Theresa Breslin about the writing of her contribution.

Other books you might like:

Other books by Theresa Breslin that I have reviewed on this blog are Ghost soldier and Remembrance. Another  good short story collection is The Great War: stories inspired by objects from the First World War, which also has a piece by Adele Geras. 

New Zealand connections:

The NZ soldiers get mentioned among the others at the training camp at Etaples that Angelique is travelling to - that's the only reference I spotted! 

Have you read it?

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think!

Ghost soldier by Theresa Breslin

Ghost soldier by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday, 2014)

33 chapters; 291 pages (but fairly large print)

Subjects: World War One, England, Borders, Scotland, trains, animals, dogs, hospitals, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

The author’s website calls this “a mystery plus detective story with poignant scenes as two children, in a desperate search for their ‘missing-in-action’ father, meet the staff and wounded men on the hospital trains that stop near their farm”. The mystery/detective element is related to strange goings-on in an old house in the woods, a suspected German spy and a shadowy ghost figure in an upstairs window.

I liked the relationship between brother and sister Rob and Millie; the focus on how those at home coped – or didn’t cope - while the husbands and fathers were away at war, and the details about how dogs could be taken away by the army (which is why they try to save their puppy, and how they end up hiding it at the old house in the woods). Thousands of dogs were needed in the war so many families must have had to give theirs up, willingly or not. The story of the ambulance trains was interesting, too, although I was never clear about whether they did or didn’t try to take injured soldiers to a hospital near their home.

I found some of the action a bit hard to believe; either too many coincidences, or too unlikely (would they really have let the children on board the train? would they have let the wounded soldier wander round the grounds so freely at night?) but this post by the author about her research suggests that the ambulance trains did stop in the countryside like this.

Reviews:

In this review, Theresa Breslin said she started writing the book because she “was asked to provide a story for a film company and this was a story I felt needed to be told”. So I wonder if that means there is a film underway?

Author’s website

I didn’t know anything about Theresa Breslin before I read her book Remembrance, but according to her website, she was born and brought up in a small town in Scotland, worked as a mobile librarian, has written over 30 books for children and young adults and won the Carnegie Medal for Whispers in the graveyard (1994) about a dyslexic boy. Her website also provides teaching notes for the book. 

Other books you might like:

Remembrance is another book about World War One by Theresa Breslin, but for older readers.

The Anzac puppy by Peter Millett and Trish Bowles is written for younger readers about a dog in war time.

Things I didn’t know

The details about blood transfusion are intriguing. Today we take blood banks for granted but back in WW1 they were still figuring out the science of blood groups and anticoagulants. 
You can read about "A brief history of blood transfusion" at the Institute of Biomedical Science, or find out more at the Science Museum. 

Remembrance by Theresa Breslin

Remembrance by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday, 2002)

ISBN 0 385 60204 9

42 chapters; 304 pages

Subjects: World War One, England, France, nurses, pacifism, letters, war poets, young adult fiction (Year 9-12)

 

Synopsis:

This is a story of those who go off to war and those who stay behind. It shows the impact that World War One had on small communities, on the class system in Britain and on the place of women in society.

The story is told through the eyes, lives and experiences of five young people living on opposite sides of the class barrier in a small Scottish village. At the start of the book, in October 1915, they are aged from 14 to 22. On one side are the children of the local shop: John Malcolm, who can’t wait to join the war, his twin Maggie and younger brother Alex, who also manages to sign up despite being well under age. At the “Big House”, Francis struggles to know how far he should follow his pacifist leanings, while his younger sister, Charlotte, wants to trains as a nurse.

You know as a reader that their lives are going to change, and it’s unlikely they will all survive unscathed. As they start to go their different ways, some of the story is told through letters, using a change in font for each letter-writer. This works well except for Francis’ letters which use an italic font that is harder to read.

Theresa Breslin has obviously carried out a huge amount of research to be able to portray such a variety of scenes: a military tribunal hearing, the munitions factory where Maggie works, the hospitals, the front line. There are some moving moments, such as when telegrams get delivered all over the village after a big battle (“up and down the lanes, lots of doors got chapped this afternoon.”)

Extracts from poems of Siegfried Sassoon (Suicide in the trenches and Aftermath) appear at the beginning and end of the book.  

You can read an extract from the book here. 
"Charlotte has been working at the local cottage hospital but has now been accepted to the military hospital in the city. On her first day a hospital train full of casualties arrives, and despite being already crowded, the hospital must take them. Although she is only 16 and has very little experience she must help in the emergency."

Another cover of the same title

Teachers notes can be found here and here. 
“Wars aren’t simply about those fighting at the fronts. Wars are also about those continuing to live in homes from which father and sons, husbands and sweethearts have gone, some never to return. World War I provided an opportunity for some women to work out with the home for the first time in their lives, giving them a sense of independence they might never otherwise have had. It also made people question the way they lived their lives, the way they expressed themselves and the way the interacted with other people.”

Questions:
Theresa Breslin herself poses a series of questions for readers of this book on her website. These are some of them:

• How do you react when the country is swept by war fever? Would you forge the date on your birth certificate and run away from home?
• What if you don't believe in the senseless slaughter of young men in the name of politics and empire - what do you do when others label you a coward?
• In a world where women have few rights... would you have the strength to use the opportunity of war to stretch your mind and grasp the possibilities that it opens up? Could you leave the safety of your family and challenge the way the world works?
• How can love survive in the horrific conditions of loss and bereavement that a world war results in? 

Reviews:
This review in Publishers weekly says the book "starts slowly but ultimately packs a wallop." Another review on the blog Not acting my age (books written for teens) describes it as "a lively way to view a world of nearly a century ago" but wonders if it is more of an adventure story than a truly YA book as (this blogger feels) the characters don't undergo much emotional growth. 

Author’s website

I didn’t know anything about Theresa Breslin before, but her website says she was born and brought up in a small town in Scotland, worked as a mobile librarian, has written over 30 books for children and young adults and won the Carnegie Medal for Whispers in the graveyard (1994) about a dyslexic boy. You can read an interview with her here. I like the bit where she says the most important quality for a writer is "tenacity".

She has said about this book:

"At this time of a new century I thought it was important to write this book. I wanted to show the many and complex aspects of war. The soldier who firmly believes he is doing his duty and is prepared to sacrifice his life to protect his family. The soldier, disillusioned, who feels his very soul is being corrupted by contact with militarism. The girls who went to nurse, wanting to help the war effort or looking for adventure, and finding in some cases a self-fulfilment they never would have had if the war had not occurred. And… the terrible grief of those left behind."

She also has a page that I found very interesting on the research she carried out in libraries, archives, museums, newspapers and private family papers, and in her own visits to the battle sites in France and Belgium. 

Other books you might like:

The role of women in World War One, and the impact that war had on them,was undervalued or unacknowledged for a long time, so it's good to see books like this. Jackie French is another author who has tackled the topic in A rose for the Anzac boys (Harper Collins, 2008). 

Things I didn’t know

I knew that letters from the Front could be censored, and soldiers would try to find ways around the censorship to hint at their whereabouts - perhaps using some kind of riddle, or a phrase that might mean something to the recipient, but I didn't know about the codes they used. At one stage, Francis sends a letter to Maggie which she doesn't fully understand until Alex explains it to her, saying “lots of soldiers send coded messages in their letters. They sometimes use it to tell their families know whereabouts in France they are.” The code might be a nonsense phrase, or words that don’t make sense in the context of their surroundings. For example, “nineteen shillings and nine pence, or rather not” would indicate a word that was 19 lines down and 9 words across. 
Theresa Breslin says in the notes on her research that she found out about this when she was "privileged to be allowed to read through some family papers which contained letters from a young soldier who was killed on the Somme." 

I'd never heard of The Bantams (the battalion that young Alex hopes to join.) At the start of the war, the minimum height requirement for volunteers was 5 ft 3 inches, but many men who were shorter than that still wanted to join up. You can read about them here and here, and this site describes the Canadian Bantams. This 25 second, silent newsreel clip from British Pathé shows a military review of the Bantam Battalion, including (as the notes explain) one "extremely short soldier". 

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g10942/?co=wwipos