CANDACE FLEMING

BOOKS

The Enigma Girls

           

Scholas­tic Focus
March 5, 2024
978–1338749571
ages 8 and up

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read by Moira Quirk

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After you’ve read The Enig­ma Girls, try this book:

The Enigma Girls

How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II

“You are to report to Sta­tion X at Bletch­ley Park, Buck­ing­hamshire, in four days time.…That is all you need to know.” This was the terse telegram hun­dreds of young women through­out the British Isles received in the spring of 1941, as World War II raged. As they arrived at Sta­tion X, a sprawl­ing man­sion in a state of dis­re­pair sur­round­ed by Spar­tan-look­ing huts with lit­tle chim­neys cough­ing out thick smoke — these young peo­ple had no idea what kind of work they were step­ping into. Who had rec­om­mend­ed them? Why had they been cho­sen? Most would nev­er learn all the answers to these questions.

Bletch­ley Park was a well-kept secret dur­ing World War II, oper­at­ing under the code name Sta­tion X. The crit­i­cal work of code-crack­ing Nazi mis­sives that went on behind its closed doors could deter­mine a vic­to­ry or loss against Hitler’s army. Amidst the bril­liant cryp­tog­ra­phers, flam­boy­ant debu­tantes, and absent-mind­ed pro­fes­sors work­ing there, it was teenaged girls who kept Sta­tion X run­ning. Some could do advanced math, while oth­ers spoke a sec­ond lan­guage. They ran the unwieldy bombe machines, made sense of wire­less sound waves, and sort­ed the decod­ed mes­sages. They were expect­ed to excel in their fields and most impor­tant­ly: know how to keep a secret.

Resource

Home­front Hero­ines: New Kids’ Books Explore Hid­den Wartime His­to­ry,” Emma Kan­tor, Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, 14 May 2024

Enigma Girls

Reviews

  “Flem­ing cap­tures the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal bur­dens that these teenagers car­ried and bal­ances it with detailed descrip­tions of the tech­nol­o­gy used to car­ry out their life­sav­ing tasks. The nar­ra­tive is bro­ken up by copi­ous black-and-white pho­tographs of the rooms the Wrens worked in; impor­tant fig­ures of the time, such as Win­ston Churchill; the machines they worked on; and oth­er wartime events. The work fea­tures a bib­li­og­ra­phy, source notes, index, and more. VERDICT Flem­ing does it again! Pur­chase this com­pelling blend of WWII, cryp­tog­ra­phy, and women’s his­to­ry that will mes­mer­ize mid­dle school­ers and inspire them to make an indeli­ble impact on his­to­ry, too. (School Library Jour­nal, starred review)

  “Fleming’s account focus­es on ten such young women (one of whom is an off­site radio oper­a­tor) but, in a mas­ter­ful pre­sen­ta­tion of relat­ed sub­ject mat­ter, seam­less­ly inter­spers­es seg­ments on larg­er his­tor­i­cal events, begin­ning with the Bat­tle of Britain and con­clud­ing with V‑J Day; clear and thor­ough expla­na­tions of codes and ciphers; and tech­ni­cal advances that led to the use of com­put­ers. The girls’ per­son­al expe­ri­ences, from cop­ing with hous­ing short­ages, to falling in love, to dis­cov­er­ing their future life’s work, adds anoth­er dimen­sion. Amid the often-tedious work of break­ing the ciphers, moments of human­i­ty appear: the joy of pin­point­ing an ene­my bomb­ing tar­get on British soil; the recog­ni­tion that a fresh­ly blood­stained Nazi cipher book meant “some­where this Ger­man air­man was still bleed­ing, dying maybe … That real­ly did bring the war close.” (The Horn Book, starred review)

  “This com­pul­sive­ly read­able, com­pelling­ly writ­ten book will appeal to a broad audi­ence, from read­ers already inter­est­ed in World War II to those who are new to the sub­ject. The fas­ci­nat­ing pho­tos and dia­grams invite brows­ing. A grip­ping nar­ra­tive cel­e­brat­ing teen girls’ under­rec­og­nized con­tri­bu­tions to Allied war efforts. (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

  “In this absorb­ing book, Flem­ing approach­es the sub­ject by telling the indi­vid­ual sto­ries of 10 young women (most were 18 years old) who left their homes to work secret­ly on projects relat­ed to the Ger­man military’s Enig­ma cipher machine. The book’s many archival pho­tographs offer glimpses of build­ings and projects at Bletch­ley and scenes of men and women work­ing there dur­ing the war, as well as pic­tures of world lead­ers, land­marks, and ships at sea. Even read­ers with lit­tle inter­est in codes and ciphers will find the women’s expe­ri­ences intrigu­ing. Flem­ing orga­nizes the mate­r­i­al well and pro­vides exten­sive source notes. The book explores the Enig­ma girls’ lives and the impor­tance of their war work, while show­ing that their choic­es, actions, and achieve­ments helped the Allies change the course of his­to­ry. (Book­list, starred review)

  “Quick-paced, thor­ough­ly researched chap­ters sub­se­quent­ly inter­sperse a sur­vey of WWII move­ments with specifics about Bletch­ley Park’s oper­a­tions and indi­vid­u­als’ assigned tasks, includ­ing lis­ten­ing for encrypt­ed Morse code mes­sages, break­ing ciphers, trans­lat­ing and index­ing infor­ma­tion, and work­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary machines such as the Bombes and the Colos­sus. In fol­low­ing the 10 teens’ often painstak­ing expe­ri­ences, Flem­ing deliv­ers a fas­ci­nat­ing and cohe­sive overview of Bletch­ley Park’s nec­es­sar­i­ly siloed, col­lab­o­ra­tive inner work­ings that reveals how the fig­ures’ ardent efforts affect­ed the out­come of WWII. Engag­ing inter­sti­tials tack­le the nuts and bolts of ciphers, clues, codes, and cribs, and b&w pho­to­graph repro­duc­tions help anchor era-spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion. (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review)

  “Inter­weav­ing the sto­ries of these young women with major WWII events offers a unique per­spec­tive on wartime, describ­ing the ordi­nary and repet­i­tive cler­i­cal work that con­tributes and con­nects to the his­toric moments. While keep­ing the harsh real­i­ty of war present, Flem­ing includes small, human­iz­ing aspects of the girls’ lives, like how Patri­cia joined the Women’s Roy­al Naval Ser­vice pri­mar­i­ly because she liked their styl­ish uni­forms. The result is a fas­ci­nat­ing and emo­tion­al­ly mov­ing per­spec­tive on the well-trod ground of WWII, care­ful­ly bal­anced and rich with details of tech­nol­o­gy, his­to­ry, and human­i­ty. (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books, starred review)

“This is the sto­ry of a hand­ful of young women — teenagers real­ly — who left their child­hoods behind and walked into the unknown,” Can­dace Flem­ing writes in “The Enig­ma Girls,” her beguil­ing new account of their con­tri­bu­tions. “For most of their lives, they nev­er breathed a word about their war expe­ri­ences.” (The New York Times Book Review)