Picture books are an effective way to share the experience of war with children who have never experienced it, and to get them thinking about war and peace. In recent years, a number of studies have been published showing that women, who were considered pacifists, not only prayed for peace at home, but also supported the home front in all aspects of society in order to send more men to the battlefield during wartime. This research also provides new themes for children's books. One example is the picture book Grace Banker and Her Hello Girls Answer the Call: The Heroic Story of WWI Telephone Operators (2021), written by Claudia Friddell. This book is based on Elizabeth Cobbs’ book The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers (2017), about the first telephone operators in military uniforms who served in France during World War I.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how women in uniform who served during World Wars I and II are represented in postwar picture books in Japan and English-speaking countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and what they mean to young readers. It will also examine whether women in military uniform empower girls and contribute to their career development, and compare those in the Allied countries with the case in Japan.
