Description
New, from award-winning historical novelist, Pamela Rushby, exploring the roles, and struggles, of women in wartime.
The poster had a picture of a tanned, healthy girl, wearing a regulation uniform hat and shorts that were, surely, anything but regulation.
When Hilly volunteers for the Women’s Land Army in 1942, she’s sixteen years old. She expects to be pickingsun-kissed fruit and bottle-feeding fluffy white lambs, all while she's wearing a flattering outfit.
Travelling to farms across Queensland, Hilly encounters backbreaking work, but also friendship and fellowship with other Land Army girls, Aileen and Glad, all seeking independence for their own reasons. War is a chance for a life away from family and familiarity, offering adventure and romance. But the poster didn’t mention crutching sheep or 4 am starts. Or the prejudice they would face, and that some men needed to be fought off, rather than fought for. In the midst of adversity, Hilly finds exactly what she is capable of … and it might be more than she ever thought possible. She is one of ‘those girls with grit’.
Review
Set in Queensland during World War II, we gain an understanding of the war efforts at home, through the eyes of three very different young women.
Our main character is 16-year-old Hillary Macmillan. Her brother Graham is off at war, and she has never felt loved or appreciated by her parents. Hillary is a great writer and, although she doesn’t want to give that away, when she learns that the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA) are accepting girls as young as sixteen she signs up.
So to does Gladys who is a strong farm girl, but whose home life is far from ideal. She has learning difficulties and is an amazingly positive character who is gently guided by the other girls.
Lastly, we have Aileen who is in her twenties. She is a married mother, whose husband and mother-in-law run her life. She has almost no input in her baby's life and when her husband enlists she sees joining the AWLA as a good option.
Together the three form a great team who are sent to various farms to help feed the war effort. They work in extremely tough conditions on a potato farm, then a pineapple plantation, a sheep station and finally a peach orchard.
Our girls experience hardship, skepticism (mostly from other women who fear that they are out to steal what few men are left), blossoming love interests, camaraderie and a sense of self worth from the jobs that they are doing.
Hillary writes of their adventures and gets published by the Australian Women’s Weekly and also falls for Gene, an American soldier. But when Graham, who has suffered in a Japanese POW camp, is set to come home Hillary is torn between the need to help him, wanting to go to America to marry Gene, or chasing her dream to be a journalist.
This is a fantastic work of historical fiction that, with the setting and topics, will make a great read for Australian students aged 13 and older. With the themes that are covered in this book it doesn’t really fit into the middle grades category as many of her previous books have, as it is slightly more senior. A great book none the less!
Reviewed by Rob
