Hello Girls

Thelma and Louise gets remade in this powerful, darkly funny teen novel from acclaimed authors Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry. Two teenage girls who have had enough of the controlling men in their lives take their rage on the road to make a new life for themselves. Winona has been starving for life in the seemingly perfect home that she shares with her seemingly perfect father, celebrity weatherman Stormy Olsen. No one knows that he locks the pantry door to control her eating and leaves bruises where no one can see them. Lucille has been suffocating beneath the needs of her mother and her drug-dealing brother, wondering if there’s more out there for her than disappearing waitress tips and a lifetime of barely getting by. One harrowing night, Winona and Lucille realize they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives. They need out. Now. One hour later, they’re armed with a plan that will take them from their small Michigan town to Chicago. All they need is three grand, fast. And really, a stolen convertible can’t hurt. Chased by the oppression, toxicity, and powerlessness that has held them down, Winona and Lucille must reclaim their strength if they are going to make their daring escape—and get away with it.

In 1918 the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France to help win World War I. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the challenges these patriotic young women faced in a war zone where male soldiers resented, wooed, mocked, saluted, and ultimately celebrated them. Back on the home front, they fought the army for veterans’ benefits and medals, and won.

Led by twenty-five-year-old Grace Banker, thirty-two telephone operators — affectionately called "Hello Girls" back in the US — became the first female combatants in World War I. Follow Grace Banker's journey from her busy life as a telephone switchboard trainer in New York to her pioneering role as the Chief Operator of the 1st Unit of World War I telephone operators in the battlefields of France. With expert skill, steady nerves, and steadfast loyalty, the Signal Corps operators transferred orders from commanders to battlefields and communicated top-secret messages between American and French headquarters. After faithfully serving her country —undaunted by freezing weather and fires; long hours and little sleep, and nearby shellings and far off explosions — Grace was the first and only woman operator in the Signal Corps to be awarded the Army's Distinguished Service Medal.

A seriously fun New Zealand toy story! Toys are made for playing with, but they are also serious business, as this remarkable story of New Zealanders and their toys makes clear. In Hello Girls and Boys! David Veart digs through a few centuries of pocket knives and plasticine to take us deep into the childhoods of Aotearoa - under the eye of mum or running wild at the end of the orchard, with a doll in the hand or an arrow in the ear, hula hooping or assembling kitsets. Veart tells a big story of how our two peoples made their fun on the far side of the ocean - Maori and Pakeha learned knucklebones from each other, young Aucklanders established the largest Meccano club in the world, and Fun Ho! and Torro, Lincoln and Luvme helped to build a successful local toy industry under the shade of import protection. But the book also covers little things and little people - homemade dolls and cereal toys, miniatures and marbles. From double happys and golliwogs to Buzzy Bees, tin canoes, Meccano and Tonka trucks - Hello Boys and Girls! revisits the crazes and collecting, playtimes and preoccupations of big and little New Zealand kids for generations.

Based on the column of the same name that appeared in The Toast, Hey Ladies! is a laugh-out-loud read that follows a fictitious group of eight 20-and-30-something female friends for one year of holidays, summer house rentals, dates, brunches, breakups, and, of course, the planning of a disastrous wedding. This instantly relatable story is told entirely through emails, texts, DMs, and every other form of communication known to man. The women in the book are stand-ins for annoying friends that we all have. There’s Nicole, who’s always broke and tries to pay for things in Forever21 gift cards. There’s Katie, the self-important budding journalist, who thinks a retweet and a byline are the same thing. And there’s Jen, the DIY suburban bride-to-be. With a perfectly pitched sardonic tone, Hey Ladies! will have you cringing and laughing as you recognize your own friends, and even yourself.

Toys are fun—but they are also serious business, as David Veart makes clear in this remarkable story of New Zealanders and their toys from Maori voyagers to 21st-century gamers. Deploying the tools of archaeology and oral history, Veart digs through a few centuries of pocket knives and plasticine to take us deep into the childhoods of Aotearoa. His story explores how people made their fun on the far side of the ocean—the Maori and Pakeha learned knucklebones from each other; young Aucklanders established the largest Meccano club in the world; and Fun Ho!, Torro, Lincoln International, and Luvme helped to build a successful local toy industry under the shade of import protection. Hello Girls & Boys! covers the crazes and collecting, playtimes and preoccupations of big and little New Zealand kids for generations. With its memories of knucklebones and double happys, golliwogs and tin canoes, marbles and Meccano, Tonka trucks and Buzzy Bees, this is a seriously fun New Zealand toy story.

Led by twenty-five-year-old Grace Banker, thirty-two telephone operators — affectionately called "Hello Girls" back in the US — became the first female combatants in World War I. Follow Grace Banker's journey from her busy life as a telephone switchboard trainer in New York to her pioneering role as the Chief Operator of the 1st Unit of World War I telephone operators in the battlefields of France. With expert skill, steady nerves, and steadfast loyalty, the Signal Corps operators transferred orders from commanders to battlefields and communicated top-secret messages between American and French headquarters. After faithfully serving her country —undaunted by freezing weather and fires; long hours and little sleep, and nearby shellings and far off explosions — Grace was the first and only woman operator in the Signal Corps to be awarded the Army's Distinguished Service Medal.