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Showing posts with the label women

Book Review: Women Heroes of World War I

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  Title: Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies, and Medics Author: Katheryn J. Atwood Publication Info: Chicago Review Press, 2014. 256 pages (hardcover) Source: Library digital resources Publisher’s Blurb: In time for the 2014 centennial of the start of the Great War, this book brings to life the brave and often surprising exploits of 16 fascinating women from around the world who served their countries at a time when most of them didn’t even have the right to vote. Readers meet 17-year-old Frenchwoman Emilienne Moreau, who assisted the Allies as a guide and set up a first-aid post in her home to attend to the wounded; Russian peasant Maria Bochkareva, who joined the Imperial Russian Army by securing the personal permission of Tsar Nicholas II, was twice wounded in battle and decorated for bravery, and created and led the all-women combat unit the “Women’s Battalion of Death” on the Eastern Front; and American journalist Madeleine Zabriskie D

Non-fiction review: Home Fires/Jambusters

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         Note: this is the same book. The copy I read is on the left, and reflects a change of title and cover to go with the TV series made from the book. On the right is the original title and cover. Title: Jambusters [Home Fires]: The Story of the Women's Institute in the Second World War Author: Julie Summers Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2013. 368 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary: Away from the frontlines of World War II, in towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role in their country’s war effort. As members of the Women’s Institute, an organization with a presence in a third of Britain’s villages, they ran canteens and knitted garments for troops, collected tons of rosehips and other herbs to replace medicines that couldn’t be imported, and advised the government on issues ranging from evacuee housing to children’s health to postwar reconstruction. But they are best known for making jam: from produce they grew on