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Bezig met laden... Canary Girls: A Noveldoor Jennifer Chiaverini
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  BookConcierge | May 30, 2024 |   I never had! "Canary Girls" was a nickname for a particular group of munitionettes, which in turn was a name used for women who worked in British ammunition plants during World War I. Canary girls did some of the most dangerous work, filling bomb shells with explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT), which also turned their skin and hair yellow - hence the nickname. In some cases, though, canary girls suffered more serious health problems. The story is told through three main narrators - April, a former housemaid; Lucy, wife of a soccer (British football) player and mother of two sons; and Helen, a second-generation German who is the wife of the manager of one of the munitions plants. April and Lucy are canary girls; Helen joins the plant administration to be their advocate. All three play for the plant's women's football team, trying to win the (real) Munitionettes' Cup. Other women working in the plant and playing on the team, as well as a few men (Lucy's and Helen's husbands, and one of the latter's assistants), round out the minor characters. Author Jennifer Chiaverini herself described the book as "Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own" (the movie about women's professional baseball during World War II), and that's pretty accurate. Although I'm not a sports fan, I really enjoyed this story. (  )1  riofriotex | Apr 24, 2024 | ) shazjhb | Apr 16, 2024 |  ) thornton37814 | Jan 26, 2024 | ) mojomomma | Sep 5, 2023 | geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Fiction.
Literature.
Historical Fiction.
HTML: Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer Chiaverini's lively and illuminating novel about the "munitionettes" who built bombs in Britain's arsenals during World War I, risking their lives for the war effort and discovering camaraderie and courage on the soccer pitch. Early in the Great War, men left Britain's factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. "Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun," the recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of womenâ??cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewivesâ??answered their nation's call. These "munitionettes" worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear. Among them is nineteen-year-old former housemaid April Tipton. Impressed by her friend Marjorie's descriptions of higher wages, plentiful meals, and comfortable lodgings, she takes a job at Thornshire Arsenal near London, filling shells in the Danger Buildingâ??difficult, dangerous, and absolutely essential work. Joining them is Lucy Dempsey, wife of Daniel Dempsey, Olympic gold medalist and star forward of Tottenham Hotspur. With Daniel away serving in the Footballers' Battalion, Lucy resolves to do her bit to hasten the end of the war. When her coworkers learn she is a footballer's wife, they invite her to join the arsenal ladies' football club, the Thornshire Canaries. The Canaries soon acquire an unexpected fan in the boss's wife, Helen Purcell, who is deeply troubled by reports that Danger Building workers suffer from serious, unexplained illnesses. One common symptom, the lurid yellow hue of their skin, earns them the nickname "canary girls." Suspecting a connection between the canary girls' maladies and the chemicals they handle, Helen joins the arsenal administration as their staunchest, though often unappreciated, advocate. The football pitch is the one place where class distinctions and fears for their men fall away. As the war grinds on and tragedy takes its toll, the Canary Girls persist despite the dangers, proud to serve, determined to outlive the war and rejoice in victory and peace. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.73)
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3.5***
Chiaverini turns the reader’s attention to the British women who, during The Great War (i.e. World War I), worked in munitions factories to produce the shells the British men fighting on the continent needed to win the war. She focuses on four women: April, Marjorie, Lucy and Helen.
April and Marjorie are young housemaids who leave service to join other women working as munitionettes in the factories producing weapons for the soldiers. Lucy is a bit older, a married women with two children who also joins the women at Thornshire Arsenal, doing her part to ensure her husband and other soldiers will have the tools they need to win the war.
Helen Purcell is also married – to the owner of the factory. But she wants to work not only for the cause, but for the health and wellbeing of the factory workers. For these workers who are handling large quantities of TNT every day are exhibiting significant side effects, the most noticeable of which is the yellow hue of their skin, hence their nickname of Canary Girls. This reminded me of the nonfiction work, The Radium Girls.
While I knew about the many “Rosie the Riveter” workers during WW2, I was completely unaware of this part of the history of WWI. I really appreciated learning more about this, and about the way the women in the various factories formed football clubs (soccer to Americans) and showed that women COULD not only play but excel. In this respect, the book reminded me of the movie A Leage of Their Own.
Saskia Maarleveld does a fine job of performing the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to deal with, many of them women, but I never felt confused about who was speaking. (