Reading the Past

Fly Away Peter is Australian. And there's the movie "Gallipoli", of course, for more of that. Ooh, and here's a home front New Zealand YA novel: http://teen-historical-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_a_rose_for_the_anzac_boys

Midge Macpherson is a 16-year-old New Zealand girl enrolled in an English finishing school when her two brothers go off to war. Her best friends are Anne, the youngest daughter of an aristocratic British family and Ethel, the daughter of a Yorkshire wholesale grocer.

The three girls struggle with their inactivity and the irrelevance of their studies in deportment and home management skills while their brothers and loved ones are fighting in France, Belgium and Gallipoli. Stirred into action by a telegram telling her that her twin brother is missing in action, Anne rallies her friends to join her as she sets off for France with a plan to start a canteen to provide meals to the troops travelling to the Western Front.

As they deal with the tens of thousands of soldiers who pass through their lives, the girls discover hidden strengths and abilities. They unearth a sense of purpose in their desire to contribute to the well-bring of the soldiers and are impacted by the connections that they make with the local French villagers, other volunteers and the soldiers themselves