CANARY GIRLS

A group of female munitions workers become friends and soccer teammates in Great Britain during World War I.

In 1915, April Tipton, a 19-year-old housemaid, follows her best friend, Marjorie, to London to work in one of the “Danger Buildings” at a munitions factory—a job that pays nearly 30 times as much as her old position, offering the ability for the women to support not only themselves, but their families. While it’s known to be dangerous work because of the chance that the bombs will explode, the poisonousness of the TNT the women work with won't be fully realized until late in the war even though from the beginning it turned the workers’ skin yellow and discolored their hair—thus earning them the nickname canary girls. Helen Purcell, daughter of an Oxford professor, has married into the family that owns the factory. Determined to do her part for the war effort, she begins working at the factory as a welfare supervisor for the workers who are increasingly obviously being poisoned, advocating for the women to her husband, Arthur, who runs the arsenal. Lucy Dempsey—who’s married to Daniel, an Olympic gold medalist–turned–professional soccer player now enlisted as a soldier—begins working at the factory to support the war effort and to earn enough money so she doesn’t lose her family’s home. Each of the women finds her way to the Thornshire Canaries, the soccer team for the arsenal, and as the war progresses, the fan base for the soccer league of “munitionettes” grows ever larger. Chiaverini has written a sprawling, ambitious story: It's part a play-by-play recounting of the Canaries’ soccer games against munitionette teams from across Britain, part a history lesson about the life-altering work undertaken by women determined to be “The Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun” regardless of the risk to their own lives, and part a story of the emotional highs and lows of the women carrying on as best they could during the war years.

The good, the bad, and the ugly sides of war on the homefront are highlighted in this uplifting story.