Doing Her Bit: A Story about the Woman’s Land Army of America

Doing Her Bit: A Story about the Woman’s Land Army of America
By Erin Hagar
Charlesbridge, 2016. Nonfiction. 32p.

Based on real people and true events, this book tells the story of “Farmerette” Helen Stevens. During World War I in America, the lack of men at home meant that crops were rotting in the fields and food shortages were threatening. Thus was born the Women’s Land Army.

Helen, a New York City college girl, goes to an Agricultural Camp and learns how whitewash walls, build fences, and plow fields. Through blisters, snakes, and fatigue, Helen and her fellow farmerettes learn to work the land, convince doubting farmers that women really can do the harsh physical labor, and do their part to make a different for their country.

This nonfiction picture book is a wonderful chronicle of a little-known historical movement and broadens the picture of the heroic men and women who worked and fought for this country.

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