Sweep: The Story of Girl and Her Monster - an audiobook review

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
By Jonathan Auxier
Read by Sarah Coomes
Brilliance Audio, 2018
8 hours, 14 minutes

Enter the world of Nan Sparrow, an indentured child laborer in the soot-filled chimneys of Victorian London.

Coomes's voice and Auxier's prose combine to create an immersive experience. 

 Read my complete review of Sweep for AudioFile Magazine and hear a sample of the book here.

Sweep swept the journals, receiving starred reviews in Horn Book, SLJ, PW, Booklist, Kirkus, and School Library Connection. 

In addition to AudioFile Magazine's Earphones Award for "truly exceptional titles that excel in narrative voice and style, characterizations, suitability to audio, and enhancement of the text," Sweep recently won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Older Readers category. award honors "outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience."


This Publishers Weekly article has a #booktalk for Sweep by the author, Jonathan Auxier.

My copy of Sweep was provided by AudioFile Magazine.

Fannie Never Flinched - a review

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman's Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights
by Mary Cronk Farrell
Abrams, 2016

Fannie Never Flinched is the true and tragic life story of early labor leader, Fannie Sellins, but it is also the heartbreaking story of tens of thousands of laborers in the United States.  Fannie first became interested in the rights of American workers when she was forced to work in a garment factory sweatshop after the death of her husband.  Working conditions in the late 1800s were harsh—long hours, dangerous conditions, and extremely low pay.

In 1902, Fannie launched Ladies' Local 67 of the United Garment Workers of America, eventually earning a shorter work day and increased wages for the new union.  Seeing that other Americans were suffering as well, Fannie became an outspoken labor leader. She traveled the country supporting other unions, including coal miners working under horrific and deadly conditions in Missouri, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Although her activism ended in her murder by sheriff's deputies in a Pennsylvania coal mining town, her legacy lives on.

Fannie Never Flinched is a treasure-trove of annotated images and photos chronicling the American labor struggle. At one point, Fannie was briefly jailed. Readers can see one of the many postcards sent to President Wilson to petition for her release. In telling her story, the author uses Fannie's words whenever possible,

"Help us fight," she told union coal miners during a speech in Illinois in November 1909.  "We women work in factories on dangerous machinery, and many of us get horribly injured or killed.  Many of your brothers die in the mines.  There should be a bond of sympathy between us, for we both encounter danger in our daily work."

The miners stomped their feet and shouted their agreement.  Some were so moved by Fannie's speech, they wiped tears from their eyes.

The struggle for American labor rights is a story of individuals striving for fair wages and safe workplaces, realizing that there is strength in numbers. Fannie Never Flinched is a well-researched, compelling story of the individual human sacrifices that were made for the common good, in order to provide future generations with things that we now take for granted—weekends, lunch breaks, the 8-hour-day, safety regulations, and vacations. There will always be friction between employers and workers.  The struggle continues today.

The book's end matter includes an Author's Note, Glossary, Time Line of Select Events in the American Labor Struggle 1877-1935, Notes, Sources, Websites for More Information, Books for Further Reading,  Acknowledgments, and Index.

A memorial to Fannie Sellins is located in the Union Cemetery in Arnold, Pennsylvania.

My local library did not own a copy of Fannie Never Flinched, so I requested that they purchase it, which they did.  It's a wise addition to any library collection.

Also by Mary Cronk Farrell:
Pure Grit: How American WWII Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific

Threads - a review

Threads 

by Ami Polonsky
Disney Hyperion, 2016

I have always appreciated an interdisciplinary approach to everything.   My favorite children's science books integrate the hard and fast facts of science with the ways in which science affects people's lives.  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition) and The Day the World Exploded are two fine examples of this style of writing.  The same interdisciplinary approach can be taken with the social sciences. My children will attest to the fact that when they neglected to wash strawberries before eating them, I would point out that they may be riddled with toxic chemicals.  If they protested that I had purchased organic berries, I would counter that many migrant farm workers who pick strawberries have inadequate access to clean bathroom facilities.  In this way, they understand that there are choices to be made in the cultivation and harvesting of food. Produce does not arrive in the grocery store by some tidy and precise process. Hard human labor is behind every easy purchase.

Ami Polansky takes an interdisciplinary approach, and thereby broadens the reader's scope of the world while addressing a very personal and intimate problem.  Threads is a book about loss and grief and the difficulty in carrying on in the wake of a loved one's death.  However, she has placed it in within the broader story of Chinese adoption, forced child labor, and the complexities of Chinese culture.

In first person voice, 12-year-old Clara struggles with her adopted sister's death from cancer, while simultaneously attempting to assuage her grief by rescuing a similarly aged girl working in a sweatshop somewhere north of Beijing. 

A car horn honks and I snap my head up.  Dad is waving to me through the closed window, the air around his car glistening in the heat.  I stand up.  I don't know what to do with this letter and photograph, but Dad will.

He's scrolling through something on his phone--probably a text from Mom asking him how I'm doing, if I seem like myself.  I open the car door and look one more time at Yuming's photograph before getting in.

Yuming, the unfortunate captive girl, also relates her story in the first person; and chapters alternate between the two girls.

The door to our room creaks open.  My heart flutters, and I look back down at my sewing.  I know very well that by now someone in America could have found my note, and I curse myself yet again for signing my name and including the photograph.  I wasn't thinking; those risks were unnecessary.  Whoever finds the note could easily notify Mr. Zhang or the police.

Clara and her family journey to China, but with different goals in mind.  Clara hopes to find Yuming.  Her parents hope to find closure.  Yuming's goal is more immediate.  She needs to escape Mr. Zhang's purse factory.

This is a satisfying story on all fronts and I was thankful that I had a realistic conclusion.


From the publisher:

• Age Range: 8-12
• Grade Range: 3-7
• Pages: 256

My copy of Threads is an Advance Reader Copy supplied by the publisher.

Growing Up in Coal Country - an audiobook review

My review of Growing Up in Coal Country as it appears in the April, 2013, issue of School Library Journal.

Growing Up in Coal Country. By Susan Campbell Bartoletti. 2 CDs. 2:18 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4558-5821-7. $49.97.

Gr 5-8--In eight chapters divided into various aspects of coal miner culture and job types (nipper, breaker boy, spragger, and mule driver were the typical jobs for children), Bartoletti recounts (Houghton Mifflin, 1996) life in Northeastern Pennsylvania coal country around the turn of the 19th century utilizing oral history and archival documents. Although the focus is on the lives of children, first-hand accounts of adults who remember life as child laborers or miner's daughters help to tell the story. Only the forward indicating her family's mining connection gives a slight indication as to the author's viewpoint about the industry. As in her award-winning Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Scholastic, 2005), Bartoletti's approach is devoid of bias or sensationalism. No embellishment is needed for the stories of men crushed so badly by cave-ins that they were scraped off the mine floors with shovels, children secretly sabotaging company equipment to ensure a day at the circus, young boys losing fingers and limbs in accidents, boys playing with homemade baseballs and engaging in strikes, and mine owners who valued mules over men. The clear, no-frills delivery by Suzanne Toren is perfectly suited to Bartoletti's style. The joy, the horror, the tenacity, the valor, the perseverance, and the loyalty of children growing up in coal country is presented, allowing listeners to form their own opinions. The only thing that could make this powerful audiobook even better would be the inclusion of the compelling black-and-white photos from the print version. With the current focus on Common Core Standards, this outstanding nonfiction selection fits the bill.

~~~~~~~~

Copyright © 2013 Library Journals, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

Listen to an audio excerpt from Growing Up in Coal Country on the publisher's website. 

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is at A Mom's Spare Time 

(What?  We're supposed to have spare time?)

Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens

Welcome to Shelf-employed! I am today's Nonfiction Monday host!

Bloggers, please add your link below. Readers, I hope you visit all of today's posters.

Thanks!

Osborne, Mary Pope and Natalie Pope Boyce. 2010. Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens. (Magic Tree House Research Guide series #22)New York: Random House.

This is the companion book to A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time, a historical fantasy romp through Dickens' A Christmas Carol,which is why it has the subtitle, Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens, when "Kids in the Victorian Era" might seem more logical.

Charles Dickens lived from 1812 - 1870, largely in the Victoria Era.  Queen Victoria reigned from 1837- 1901. Rich or poor, life was difficult for Britain's children in those days.  Rich children suffered from serious diseases and were raised largely apart from their parents. Boys were sent away to strict schools while girls studied at home with a governess those subjects which were thought most likely to win them a suitable husband - French, dancing, drawing, music.  Of course, they were still much better off than the poor children and street children who filled the streets of London. They slept outside in rags or lived in debtors' prisons or squalid housing. They often worked in dangerous factories for long hours with little or no pay - beginning as young as five years old! Cholera and typhoid were epidemic. Life for a poor child in the time of Charles Dickens was wretched.  Rags to Riches explains all these facets of Victorian Era life and more, with liberal use of sketches and period photographs.

 It is doubtful that any child can read the accounts in the chapter, "Jobs for Poor Kids," and not be affected.  Imagine life as a climbing boy, often only five or six years old,

Since they were small, they could squeeze through narrow parts of the chimney.
     Climbing boys climbed to the top of the chimney and swept the coal dust out on their way back down. They got cuts and bruises from the jagged bricks.  To toughen up their skin, salt water was rubbed into it.
     If the boys got scared and stopped climbing, the chimney sweeps jabbed their feet with pins or lit fires to keep them moving.  At times climbing boys got burned or stuck in the chimneys and suffocated.

Quite a different reality from the friendly, Bert, of Mary Poppins fame!

A children's highlight from the Victoria Era?  The birth of the modern children's picture book - Beatrix Potter's illustrated Tales of Peter Rabbit.  Of course, without money, poor children likely only glimpsed the tiny little books through shop windows.

This is not an easy topic for which to create a research guide.  A chronological approach does not work well, and the many aspects of a child's life are almost too large in scope for a book of this small scale. Still, Pope has created a semblance of order, dividing the topic into six chapters: 'Hard Times for Kids," "What Charles Dickens Saw," "The London of Dickens," "Jobs for Poor Kids," Rich Kids," and "How Things Changed."

Avenues for further research and an index complete this guide book.





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The Limit

This is the final cover
art.  Advance Review
Copies differ.

Landon, Kristen. 2010. The Limit. New York: Aladdin.
(Advance Reader Copy)

from The Limit

...I heard a sharp gasp from Mom’s checkout worker.  My eyes shot up.  Checkout Lady had her hand over her mouth.  Mom seemed unflustered.  Checkout Lady must have made a mistake.  I kept reading. ... The usual noise and confusion of the megastore around me dimmed.  It was like it faded to almost nothing, leaving only the voices of my mom and Checkout Lady  Even Abbie put a lid on her usual nonstop chatter and stuck her thumb in her mouth.  I thought she’d stopped sucking her thumb a long time ago. 

   “I’m sure it’s a mistake,” Mom said.  “A computer glitch somewhere.”

    Checkout Lady punched a few buttons on her computer while her front teeth gnawed her lower lip like a beaver working a tree.  “I’m sorry.   It’s not a mistake. You’re over your limit.”

   An electric current zapped through me.  No. Wait. Stuff like this didn’t happen to our family.

But 13-year-old Matt was mistaken.  It did happen to his family, and now he was the one chosen by the Federal Debt Rehabilitation Agency (FDRA) to repay his family’s debt under Federal Debt Ordinance 169, Option D which decrees compulsory service in an FDRA workhouse.  Whisked away from his family by a burly guard and smooth-talking, Miss Smoot, Matt is taken to a workhouse without so much as a change of clothes.  Likely based on his above average intelligence, Matt is designated a “Top Floor,” and receives a challenging job, a rigorous school curriculum, and plush accommodations.  Unable to contact the outside world, he learns to live with his fellow “top floors,” Coop, Jeffrey, Isaac, Paige, Neela, Kia, Madeline, and the unseen and mysterious Reginald.  At first glance, all appears in order at the workhouse, but Matt and his friends begin to discover something more threatening than unpaid debts at the Midwest Federal  Debt Rehabilitation Agency workhouse.

Matt narrates this thriller about a high-tech society in which the government assigns every family a spending limit based on its income - not just any limit - the limit, the limit that cannot be exceeded without the direst of consequences. Eye scans and Big Brother-style monitoring are commonplace in this society that readers will find much like our own, where advertising and consumerism reign supreme. Although The Limit’s premise is the consequence of negligent overspending, the heart of the story is the high-tech, cat-and-mouse game between the brilliant “top floors” and the outwardly beautiful but sinister Miss Smoot, as Matt and his fellow inmates make increasingly shocking revelations as they attempt to discover the story of the other workhouse floor assignments and the headaches plaguing some inhabitants. Cautionary, but not didactic, The Limit is sure to hit a nerve with readers old enough to understand even the most basic aspects of family finances. The financially illiterate have even greater reason to read The Limit. Highly recommended.

Ms. Landon’s site offers Lesson Plans and other resources for educators.

On shelves in September.

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Factory Girl

Greenwood, Barbara. 2007. Factory Girl. Kids Can Press.

Factory Girl is an interesting mix of fiction and non-fiction. Unlike "diary" or "journal" type books, that offer a nonfiction appendix, this book's chapters alternate between the fictional life of Emily, a 12-year-old garment worker, and non-fiction essays on the related issues of the day. (i.e., squalid living conditions, union organization, wretched factory conditions)

While this makes for very interesting and relevant reading, it also makes the book rather difficult to classify. A reader looking for a historical fiction novel may pass on Factory Girl because of its factual accounts (although they are well-written and accompanied by exceptional period photographs). A reader seeking a non-fiction book for a school report might likewise pass on Factory Girl because it is not likely to fulfill a teacher's requirements.

In either case, readers would be missing out on a great piece of history, both fictional and factual. The fictional Emily's story ends on a positive note as she makes the decision to go public with conditions in the sweatshop after she loses a friend in a factory fire. Of course, this is paralleled by the true-life Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911.

Factory Girl ends with an ironic twist. Although child labor laws were eventually passed during the Great Depression (more to provide jobs for men than to save children) , United States consumers still purchase clothes and carpets made under the same appalling conditions detailed in the story. Thousands of children still labor in the sweatshops of India, Pakistan, China and other countries. Greenwood reminds readers that the solution is education, "North American children, for the most part, are now able to enjoy their childhood as they grow into educated adults. One battle has been won, but in other parts of the world, the fight continues."

The numerous photographs by noted 19th and 20th century reformers and photographers, Jacob Riis, J.S. Woodsworth, and Lewis Hine, add a great deal of power to this story of hardship, endurance and hope.