⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Jennifer Chiaverini’s Canary Girls shines a spotlight on a little-known chapter of World War I history—the British “munitionettes” who risked their lives making bombs while their brothers, husbands, and sweethearts fought on the front lines. Through the perspectives of three women from different walks of life—April, a former housemaid; Lucy, the wife of a football star; and Helen, the boss’s socially conscious wife—the novel captures both the camaraderie and the danger of working in the factories. The women’s skin literally turns yellow from handling TNT, earning them the nickname “canary girls,” yet they persist, fueled by patriotism and the fellowship they find on the soccer pitch. Chiaverini blends historical fact with […]
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December 2021 Reads
So, I only got through seven books in December, but in my defense, I have four great excuses for my lack of production: Coming in at well over nine hundred pages, Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone counts for at least two books; I had a wicked stomach bug for a week; Grammies have gifts to buy; Jesus is the reason for the season. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon The ninth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series finds the Fraser family reunited during the American Revolution. It’s 1779, and Claire and Jamie Fraser have found each other across time and space and […]
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The Women’s March Stumbled
It’s always frustrated me it took women so long to gain the vote. More than a dozen countries gave us the right to vote before the United States; that’s mind-boggling to me. I’d like to think I would have been a suffragist back in the day, but I’m a sissy. The leaders of the movement—including Alice Paul, Maud Malone, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Lucy Burns, and Jane Adams—risked life and limb to secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution. I was excited to read this novel and learn more about the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, but what I got was a boring book by an […]
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