If you didn’t know, I am a long-time member of the the Girl Guides of Canada! Starting when I was 5, I have been involved nearly every year of my life. So, when this book was found in my Grannie’s library, the family felt I’d find it interesting.

Written just a year after World War II, this book is a series of stories about how Girl Guides in Britain and the world helped the war effort. It is written to be read aloud to groups, to inform and inspire, but paints a high-level history of the war if read in its entirety. 

With badges proving competency, and a program that focussed on self-sufficiency and community service, Girl Guides were responsible for supporting salvage efforts, volunteering at aid centres and even in military bases, and helping refugees. As the adults working on the war effort, the book says many of these actions were youth-driven. Most impressive was the story where a global effort raised 46,216L in 1940 ($1.5 million today!), allowing the purchase of an air ambulance and a fleet of emergency boats. However, This book is definitely racist in certain descriptions of people of colour, particularly in the chapter “They Stood Beside Us” on overseas support for Britain during the worst of the war. 

Girl Guides is a global, with a membership of 10 million people in 152 countries. Seeing how those Guides came together in a time of war to support each other was inspiring, and made me wonder what would happen if there was a coordinated action by 10 million people from every continent, and three-quarters of the world's countries on an issue like climate change?

The book was interesting, with a good dose of guiding propaganda. For its own sake, and due to the problematic elements, I probably wouldn’t recommend it, but I appreciated the reminder that I am part of something much bigger than me, and the inspiration of what can be done if we all work together.