Books for Women's History Month, 2022

March is almost over and this is my first post for Women's History Month.  I didn't want the month to run out before I share a few books that focus in one way or another on women's history.  These books are, for the most part, about either one woman or a small group of women who made history or lived through a challenging time period.  There are four adult non-fiction books, two children's biographies, and four fiction with women as the main characters in historical settings.  Perhaps you will enjoy one of them.

This Time Next Year We'll be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
This seemed like a hopeful book to read at the beginning of 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.  And it was.  I loved this memoir.  Winspear grew up in the late 1950s and 1960s in England.  I love the detail about picking hops, oast houses, her parents’ time living in a gypsy caravan, and the other memories and insights she shared of her own childhood and youth.  Her parents taught her to work and that work would take care of many emotions—anger, sadness, unhappiness.  After surgery on her eyes when she was young, her face was black and blue.  When her father first saw her after the surgery, he held her close and told her, “This time next year we’ll be laughing”  I love the subtle admission that now is rough combined with the strong suggestion that things will get better in the future.

The Ride of Her Life:  The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  As the book opens, 62-year-old Annie Wilkins goes to the hospital with a bout of pneumonia.  While there, recovering, her Uncle Waldo is sent to a care home where he dies.  When Annie returns home the doctor tells her to live restfully.  She has a farm to take care of, now without the help of her uncle, and she doesn’t have enough money to pay taxes on the farm to keep it.  She gets free seeds from the pickle factory, plants them all, and earns enough money to leave the farm behind. She decides to buy a horse and ride to California to fulfill the dream her mother had of visiting the state.  She buys Tarzan, a Morgan horse, packs up her possessions–at least what she believes she’ll need on the trip—and with her little dog, Depeche Toi, they set off from Minot, Maine, in November, 1954.  The book recounts her travels, negotiating highways with her horse, her interactions with those she meets along the way including those who give her shelter and help, and incorporates a bit of history of some of the places she stayed.  Through the book we get an idea of what it was like living in the mid-1950s.  One of the themes Letts brings up several times is the change in outlook from the view of a safe America to one of uncertainty about strangers vs. potential acquaintances/neighbors/friends that was happening at that time in America.

The Dressmakers of Auschwitz:  The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive by Lucy Adlington 
   In some ways this book was hard to read but it was so worth it.  The author introduces the reader to a number of young, female seamstresses as they grow into adulthood in Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and France, and find themselves prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where they were eventually selected to become seamstresses in a salon for the wives of Nazi leaders.  (I can’t imagine having to do a work I love for people who treat me like vermin.)  Without being too graphic the author presents the situation of the captives and takes us into the concentration camp, showing the reader several areas of the camp including Kanada, warehouses of looted goods from the people held in the concentration camp.  It was interesting to learn how friendships formed and how some prisoners supported each other.  Almost a behind-the-scenes look at some aspects of Auschwitz.
   The book is based on research and interviews with 98-year-old Bracha Berkovic Kohút, and daughters, granddaughters, and other family members of those who were in Auschwitz.
   Early in the book the author discussed how fashion can create unity (and to some extent, pride) in a group of people, something I had never thought about.  Think Boy Scout uniforms to military uniforms and even national folk costumes.  Fashion can also create divisiveness.
   I came away with the lesson that resistance can be manifest in a variety of ways.

Nothing Stopped Sophie.  The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain by Barbara McClintock, illustrated by Cheryl Bardoe
This is a children's book about Sophie Germain, who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s in Paris during the French Revolution at a time when the education of girls and women was minimal.  She loved math and persisted to become a mathematician.  Beautiful illustrations and well-written story.  Though written for younger children, I noticed that some of the words (for example, scoffed, scholar, prodigy) are above the level of a 5-6-year-old.  Still, a way for them to learn new words in an inviting way.

The Girl Who Thought in Pictures:  The Story of Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca, illustrated by Daniel Rieley
Temple Grandin was diagnosed with autism when she was a young adult.  Because of that different ability, she has become an expert on animal science, invented cruelty-free livestock facilities, earned a PhD, and is a livestock expert.   This book, in verse, points out that being different is not being worse. At the end there is a 2-page spread with fun facts and tidbits from the author’s chat with Temple; another 2-page spread with a time line; and a more detailed biography for adults. Temple Grandin is one of my favorite contemporary great ladies.

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan.
This is a fiction book that offers a new twist on the World War II experience.   The setting is a small town in England in 1942 when food rationing is a major concern for the women of the time.  There are four main characters, all women, who participate in a cooking contest to become a co-host for a BBC radio program about cooking with rations.  Audrey is a war widow with 3 sons; Lady Gwendoline is her sister, and they are at odds with each other; Zelda is a chef who wasn’t able to find work in London after the restaurant where she worked was bombed; and Nell is a cook’s helper for Mrs. Quince at Lady Gwendoline’s manor.  Different backgrounds, different personalities, different challenges.  I really enjoyed this book, especially because of it’s focus on women and their roles in a historical setting.  A ration recipe is included at the end of some chapters.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
What a great book of fiction! I loved it and I loved the premise of the book, that words relating to women were excluded from early dictionaries.  We meet Esme Nicoll in 1886 when she is about 4. Because her mother is dead, she plays under the table where her father works in the Scriptorium.  He is a lexicographer, helping to define words for the upcoming publication of a new version of the Oxford English Dictionary.  The words are written on 4" x 6" cards of paper, called slips.  Each include a word, its definition, and a sentence in which the word is used.  As she grows older Esme falls in love with words, and realizes that most of the words in the dictionary, and their definitions, are decided by men, and that there are words by, for, about, and used by women that are not included.  She begins her own collection of slips.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
I loved this work of fiction, written almost as if it's a memoir.   Hannah is an 80-year-old widow (born in 1920) who tells the story of her life. The book is beautifully written with a down-to-earth, yet sometimes lyrical, voice. Hannah has plenty of insights.  For example, Hannah describes her grandmother’s clothing and says, “'The girls of her day, I think, must have been like well-wrapped gifts, to be opened by their husbands on their wedding night, a complete surprise. ‘”Well! What’s this?”’” A delight to read.

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
I loved this work of fiction for young adults.  The language and writing were beautiful and the story was interesting and insightful.  It is filled with surprising similes.  Written in first person, the story takes place in 1890 in Atlanta where 17-year-old Chinese girl Jo Kuan lives with Old Gin, an older man who took her in when she was a baby.  They secretly live in the basement of the home and print shop of one of the local newspapers.  At the beginning of the story Jo works in a hat shop decorating women’s hats but is fired because she makes the customers “uncomfortable.”  She returns to work for the wealthy family as a lady’s maid to their haughty daughter who is about the same age as Jo.  The story leads us through mysteries (to learn who Jo’s parents are), romance, surprising challenges, and adventure, all with the thread of discrimination running through it—against blacks, Chinese, and women—and their attempts to overcome it.  One thing I will say is that Jo seems older and more mature than any 17-year-old I’ve ever known.  And though published as a teen/young adult book, I think some of the content would be more appropriate for a slightly older audience.


Previous posts recommending books for women's history

• A Baker's Dozen Books for Women's History Month, 2014  
• Ten Plus One for Women's History Month, 2014 
• Book Suggestions for Women's History Month, 2015 
• Books for Women's History Month, 2016 
• Recommending Books for Women's History Month, 2019 
• A Trio of Books for Women's History Month, 2020
  

I hope you've found at least one good book to read for Women's History Month.  If so, what is it?

-–Nancy.

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