Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II by Candace Fleming. 384 p. Scholastic Focus/ Scholastic Inc., March, 2024.
Fact Friday features Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II by Candace Fleming. During World War II, the Axis powers sent coded messages that were very difficult to crack due to their use of Enigma machines. The British government sent telegrams to hundreds of young women from all walks of life, many of them teens to Station X at Bletchley Park. There, they were sworn to secrecy and embarked on work attempting to decode intercepted messages from the enemy. Ms. Fleming introduces the reader to ten of those extraordinary women in this intense and fascinating work of narrative nonfiction. Some of the women were skilled in mathematics and others spoke several languages. All worked tirelessly to turn the tide of the war. Their work was instrumental in the British Navy's defeat of the Italian Navy as well as during the planning of the D-Day invasion.
The book is chock full of photos, side stories and information about codes and ciphers. Any new book by Ms. Fleming was an automatic purchase for my school library. This should have wide appeal and one I highly recommend. Happy reading!
ETA: Here's a short video of the author talking about Enigma Girls.
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