A Strange Enchantment

It is a particular weakness of mine that I'll read a fictional book which will suddenly send me off on a nonfiction spending spree. Case in point: while reading Laurie R. King's O Jerusalem, a mystery novel starring the crimefighting duo of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell and set in post-WWI Israel, I was so fascinated by the political backdrop of the setting that I hightailed it to Powells and came home with a handful of books about British Palestine and the Balfour Agreement.

While researching fictional children's books set in boarding schools (a favorite genre of mine), I came across an author named Mabel Esther Allan. She was an incredibly prolific writer of children's stories in England, though relatively unknown in America, and out of curiousity, I requested a few of her books through the library. Last night, I picked up one of them, thinking I'd give it a halfhearted try. Before I knew it, it was four hours later (and half an hour past my bedtime). I had finished the book and was itching with the desire to jump in my car and drive to Powells for some nonfiction to satisfy my sudden, blinding curiosity. The only thing stopping me was that it was 11:30 pm and Powells had been closed for half an hour.

A Strange Enchantment
by Mabel Esther Allan



This fictional book for young adults (and ever-young adults) is set during WWII in England. The heroine, a 16 year old girl named Primrose (Prim, for short), is a city girl who longs to live in the countryside. As patriotic fervor sweeps the country just after the declaration of war, Prim decides to leave school, lie about her age, and join the Women's Land Army. The novel follows her experience with the organization, as well as what it teaches her about life and herself.

I was only peripherally aware of the Women's Land Army (WLA) before reading this book, and that awareness was thanks to another Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell book. In a nutshell, when the men of England went to Europe to fight during WWI and WWII, the women of England left their homes to work in the factories and on the farms. The WLA educated them in agricultural fields and placed them with farms around the kingdom, giving them work in a time of need and keeping the land from suffering a food shortage.

I was fascinated by Prim's story and by her thirst for adventure and for the peace of the countryside. Her love of the land and of her job, difficult and occasionally tedious as it was, was imbued in every sentence of the book. I was sorry when it ended, and am now eager to learn more about the WLA.

Unfortunately, there is somewhat of a dearth of information on the topic. Powells boasts several titles, the most interesting-sounding one being:



Unfortunately, NONE of the books on the WLA that it has in stock are under $40. That's about $25 more than I'm willing to spend on a book. At the moment, I'm at an impasse, unable to quickly and cheaply satisfy my curiosity on this topic. Financially, it's probably just as well. Mentally, it's frustrating as heck.

What fictional books have fired your intellectual curiosity on a topic?