A review by kmg365
Home Fires: The Story of the Women's Institute in the Second World War by Julie Summers

3.0

It’s not my intent to damn with faint praise, here, but I have to recount my relief when this book ended 6 segments short of where I thought it would. My mp3 player somehow rammed the tracks together with a different book, making it look much longer than it was. Without enumerating daily menu plans for every soul in a representative village, I couldn’t imagine what she was going to talk about for 6 more hours.

During World War II, village women in the United Kingdom, organized mainly through their affiliation with a local Women’s Institute chapter, were enlisted in numerous activities to assist the war effort. From food production and preservation, to knitting “comforts” for the troops and prisoners of war, to housing the mothers and children evacuated from London, the efforts of these farm wives were key in minimizing the impact when the ships delivering routinely imported items could no longer get through.

This book was the inspiration for the ITV television series Home Fires, the first season of which has also aired on PBS in the U.S. The show, in addition to having a hauntingly beautiful theme song, does a wonderful job of allowing the viewer to attach human faces to the impressive statistics listed in the book.