The Outdoor Girls in Army Service; Or, Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys
1918
The Outdoor Girls in Army Service; Or, Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys
1918
In the spring of 1918, as the Great War reshapes Europe, a group of spirited young women gather on a veranda with knitting needles in hand, their laughter masking a deeper anxiety. Betty Nelson, the "Little Captain," leads her friends, Grace, Mollie, and the others, as they channel their worry into action: knitting sweaters, organizing Red Cross benefits, doing whatever their small American town asks of them. But when their friends Allen, Frank, and Roy volunteer for service, the war suddenly becomes personal. Pride and fear collide at every send-off. Meanwhile, Grace watches her brother Will grow distant and strange, volunteering for nothing, and wonders what secret he's keeping. Written during the war itself, this novel captures a unique historical moment, when girls on the home front discovered that "doing their bit" meant more than charity work, but learning to live with dread while pretending to be brave. For readers who love wartime history or early girls' adventure series, this is a fascinating artifact of how young women actually experienced World War I: not as soldiers, but as everyone left behind, waiting.
