60 pages • 2 hours read
Janet Skeslien CharlesMiss Morgan's Book Brigade
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Impacts of Women in History
By fictionalizing the stories of real historical women, Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade brings attention to the leadership and accomplishments of the women who in 1918 “stood as the bulwark to all civilization” (32). Though Anne Morgan’s American Committee for Devastated France and “book brigade” received attention during and immediately after the war, their impacts are rarely discussed or taught; the novel succinctly sums this up when Marcelle comments, “History books don’t tell the half of it,” and Wendy replies, “Especially where women are concerned” (263). From Wendy’s initial shock at the very existence of CARD to Professor Hill’s derisive demand that war stories include men, the novel subtly underscores how these women’s most celebrated efforts have been obscured, omitted, or overlooked. By giving voice to its women narrators and placing men on the periphery of the narrative, the novel explores the dignity and grace with which the women of CARD operated in France and the obstacles and criticisms they needed to overcome in order to do so.
Kit’s explicit admiration for the Cards, interwoven with Wendy’s passion for “herstory” and reporting of recorded historical facts, sheds light on these impacts. Kit’s narration describes both Anne Morgan and Anne Murray Dike with awe, and the novel depicts through fiction many of the factual efforts of CARD in France. The characters evacuate civilians while working as chauffeurs, rebuild villages and stock mercantile stores, make house calls to care for ailing children, restore faith in a future through access to literature, and preserve culture with mobile libraries. Wendy, also with a sense of awe, narrates the facts she uncovers about their efforts: “While the war was raging, they replanted 7,300 fruit trees. They distributed goats, chickens, rabbits, clothing, linens, furniture, oil-burning lamps, and stoves. They sowed 7,500 acres of land with seeds” (33). By populating Kit’s timeline with fictional French civilians who were the beneficiaries of these efforts, the novel illustrates their human impact and the lives they changed or saved.
The novel depicts the societal expectations women had to defy or overcome to achieve these impacts. Its male characters are cast in mostly flat, secondary roles; they appear only in the context of their relationships to the main characters, as supporters or detractors of their efforts. Both Roberto and Tom help the protagonists on their journeys to Self-Discovery, Resilience, and Transformation, but never take center-stage. Men like Roberto, Tom, helpful Monsieur Hugo, and respectful Eugene Morel are depicted as rare outliers: For every character who believes in the women’s ability to make an impact, there is a Monsieur Charon, a Professor Hill, or an ex-husband and his friends. Dr. M.D. describes this group as “[s]willing their cognac, mocking us from the comfort of their wingback chairs” (49), suggesting they are too cowardly to make a difference and pleased with themselves simply for the accomplishment of being wealthy men. Notably, the author does not exempt women from the same kinds of condescension and gender expectations; Winnifred Smythe is a model of the petty jealousy, “self-seeking [and] politics” (6) that Professor Hill cynically insists must be part of the story and of the “stodgy” bureaucracy Monsieur Charon prizes. By illustrating these perspectives and the impacts the women had despite them, the novel casts the women of CARD as war heroes in their own right.
The Preservation of Cultural Artifacts
Throughout the novel, characters work to save memories of the past in a variety of ways, including the formal preservation of documents and the informal collection of mementos. Wendy’s work in Remembrance is the most explicit example of this. When Roberto reminds her that the Under Two Flags bulletins are priceless, and by sneaking them out of the library Wendy is “risking that their story is lost forever” (95), it shows the value of such artifacts and conveys the idea that preserving them is essential for any society that wants to understand and learn from its history. However, the novel also suggests that documents and histories are not the only things that can be called “priceless,” as many characters use the word to describe other types of artifacts: Madame Moreau uses it to describe books, and Madame Petit uses it when she determinedly hides her heirlooms from the encroaching German army. The characters’ tendency to keep “pieces” of each other—a recipe, a handkerchief, a pink ribbon—also suggests that cultural artifacts are more than what’s written in history books. If “culture” is the shared values and beliefs of a society, then anything that represents those values and beliefs is an artifact worthy of preservation.
Through Wendy’s perspective, the novel takes issue with the types of artifacts that are commonly preserved; namely, that they chiefly concern the works of men and the acts of the wealthy. “The rich—even long dead—leave behind traces of their lives. […] Historical societies and libraries preserve diaries, memoirs, letters of the wealthy and powerful. […] The poor fade into obscurity without a trace” (90). The difficulty Wendy experiences in unearthing Jessie Carson’s story and Roberto’s suggestion that maybe she should just focus on the better-known Anne Morgan instead underscore this idea; in doggedly pursuing the story of Jessie Carson, Wendy shows the value of re-examining the artifacts that still exist for the untold stories they contain. Further, Wendy’s assertion that “[h]istory is about perspective” (146) elucidates a leitmotif in the novel; it suggests history is written—and sometimes erased—by the powerful.
The juxtaposition of Kit’s efforts to preserve literacy and libraries with the destruction of these artifacts by the German army furthers this motif and connects the preservation of cultural artifacts with The Value of Literacy as a Means of Connection and Escape and The Impacts of Women in History. The characters’ efforts to protect French books and other cultural touchstones emphasize the role of women in preserving history under imminent threat: Kit restores Gaston Devereux’s History of Picardie because she knows the personal value it will have for Sidonie, and Sidonie in turn keeps the book safe to preserve her connection to her husband but also his knowledge of regional history; Madame Petit hides her heirlooms, and Kit in turn dredges them out of the stream so they will greet her upon her arrival. This suggests that if history is about perspective, locating the untold stories is about knowing where to look.
Across timelines, the preservation of mementos develops the value of personal artifacts further. Both Wendy and Kit cherish the notes in the margins of novels by loved ones who have died; Marcelle serves Wendy scones made with Cookie’s recipe; Jeanne caresses Suzanne’s pink ribbon; the motif of the handkerchief connects these timelines with “the weight of history” (301). The novel concludes that the urge to hold on to cultural artifacts is inherently human, and that their preservation is not only the province of researchers and librarians, but also of all members of a society who want to understand and honor their past.
Self-Discovery, Resilience, and Transformation
The novel explores factors that contribute to self-discovery and transformation; through the characters’ experiences, it suggests that helping others, celebrating small victories, and making time to mark the pleasures of life are essential to such growth. The necessity of hope is also central to this theme, and the juxtaposition of hope and despair is often used to convey the characters’ resilience as they face obstacles and overcome misgivings without giving up. In fact, these struggles between opposing forces and desires are often depicted as the necessary steps toward embracing one’s full self; as Kit puts it, “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm” (22), and the war is the storm the characters must weather.
Kit and the other Cards illustrate how self-discovery and resilience can be achieved through service. At the beginning of the novel, Kit has had a career as a librarian and worked on both coasts but still doubts her abilities and second-guesses her decisions. She recalls fretting about whether to even go to France, and Skeslien Charles relies on juxtaposition to convey her turmoil: “My fingers entwined like guilt and love, like fear and hope, like Mabel and me. You think of everyone but yourself, she insisted. You said this is your calling. You must go” (19). In Breckie’s past, too, the novel develops the notion of service as essential to resilience and self-discovery; she tells Sidonie about twice recovering from heartache—and rejecting societal expectations—through nursing and caring for mothers and babies. Breckie tells Sidonie, “I took a new vow, a vow to be of use. You must do the same” (61). Her empathy and urging help set Sidonie on her own path toward resilience and transformation, and she ultimately learns how to be a librarian.
As Kit helps transform the village through her work, she learns the meaning of resilience and resourcefulness from Cards and villagers, who waste nothing, focus on the positives, and mark small pleasures such as a cup of tea. Kit’s initial surprise at seeing a bouquet of flowers in the copper shell of a bomb reassures her that beauty can exist in the most unlikely of places, telling Breckie, “if you can transform deadly weapons into floral arrangements, I feel I’m in good hands” (18). Though many of the homes she visits have been bombed into wreckage, the people living there find reasons to praise them, saying a mud hut is cozy and pointing out that sleeping in the kitchen near the fire is warmer than it ever was when they had a real bedroom. These lessons in resourcefulness—and the further juxtaposition of opposing forces in the ugliness of war with the beauty of optimism—are apparent in Kit’s efforts to bring books and literacy back to the north of France: Her ad hoc story hours, the reading tent she creates in a field hospital, and the idea to retrofit army ambulances as mobile libraries are all examples of wasting nothing and focusing on the positives. Through the work of her “calling,” Kit transforms the village and discovers that she is more than competent. The personal victories she marks, such as her decision to love Tom and her ultimate refusal to bow to Vincent Charon or Winnifred Smythe, are the result of this discovery. This transformation is what makes Kit a dynamic character.
The Value of Literacy as a Means of Connection and Escape
The value of literacy is a thread that runs through the development of the novel’s other themes: It is central to the preservation of culture, the impacts of women like Jessie Carson in history, and the transformation of entire villages in northern France. Libraries and the work of librarians are centered in both protagonists’ timelines; the mission to preserve history and extend literacy to all gives both women’s lives shape and purpose throughout the novel.
Kit’s frequent comparisons of books to doors, windows, and bridges convey her firm faith in their ability to provide connection or escape, as needed. She tells the two Annes that books can be a “respite from the daily hardships” (49) the children of France have faced, and vows “to make sure every child had the much-needed pleasure, spark of imagination, and escape that books brought” (51) so that they could imagine a future for themselves beyond the present devastation. Meanwhile, she uses literature as a means to connect with adults who have otherwise closed themselves off from the world, beginning with handing Anne of Green Gables to Marcelle and Howard’s End to Sidonie; she affirms the comfort they might find in these books by reflecting that it’s “reassuring to believe that everything works out, in fiction if not in real life” (101). Through the transformations of Marcelle’s and Sidonie’s lives, the novel suggests that having access to literature and education can help heal the horrors of the past as Kit hopes; the resilience they get from books helps them cope with the obstacles they face in rebuilding their lives.
The Cards’ story hours and Kit’s insistence that the library be rebuilt demonstrate her resilience, and they create meeting places that connect and transform the community. Like the novels, rebuilding the library gives the women a sense of purpose and unity. Madame Petit observes that a “town needs a library in the same way that a home needs a hearth” (236), conveying that such spaces are the true heart of a place. Kit’s efforts ensure that everyone is welcome at her hearth, but also demonstrate her belief that “a library should be thought of as a river, […] where knowledge flows. It’s not a reservoir, where ideas stagnate” (252). Skeslien Charles includes factual details about the work of the real-life Jessie Carson to emphasize how she upended a French system in which books were withheld from children, the poor, and the uneducated. When Kit vows to make a library in Paris for everyone, Sidonie jokes that she is “planning another French revolution” (295), and the novel does present Kit’s work as a librarian and her determination to share literature as a radical act. In defying the expectations of others and escaping her hometown for New York City, Wendy’s aspiration to be a published writer seems similarly radical to her.
The novel suggests that without the “radical” efforts of librarians and writers, without literacy and the connection it provides, there is no culture. The combination of these ideas is explicit in Kit’s despair when surveying the wreckage of the library at Blérancourt in the aftermath of the German bombardment:
Though stories were eternal, books were as fragile as people. […] German soldiers had destroyed the collection, waging a war on words, ideas, and our need for communication. Books, newspapers, and journals contained our past, the way we saw things, and the way we wished things would be. They carried our longings, our dreams for children, an hour of escape, and an education (41).
The idea that literacy is what connects a people to their culture appears again when Marcelle names The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet as her favorite book. The story of a schoolmaster who in 1870 aimed to subvert the edict to speak German in Prussian-occupied Alsace-Lorraine by teaching that “we must always protect [language], because even if people become enslaved, as long as they retain their language, it’s like holding the key to the prison” (45), illustrates that literacy and language are both a connection to culture and an escape from intolerable injustice. It suggests that those who would destroy literacy, education, and ideas aim to erase a society’s memory of the past and remove any dreams for its children’s future.
