Audacity
by Melanie Crowder
Format: Kindle
Price: Free via the Overdrive app
Price: Free via the Overdrive app
How I heard about it: It was put forward as a possible book for our novel adoption next year
Basic Premise: Russian-born Clara seems to be the only one in her family who understands what it means to work. While her father and brothers study the Torah, she is out making a living for her family, who desperately needs the money her job at the shirtwaist factory provides to scrape by in this new country.
My Take: 8 out of 10 (scale here)
This is another book written in free-verse poetry. It's set in the early 1900s in New York at the time of the factory union strike. Having just read Uprising and studied the event from a historical perspective with my students, I felt like I really "got" the last half of this book which deals with the injustices rendered to immigrants in factories such as these during this time. The first half was less clear. It begins in Russia where Clara lives with her family in a shetl, which I had to look up - it's a small Jewish village. Her father and brothers spend all day studying and she is not allowed to go to school. Having come off the heels of studying Malala, this was appropriately infuriating. (I would love to do this with students and explore this issue, because they got really fired up about it this year!) I did have to email my history-teacher dad at one point though and ask what was up with Jews. Why were they hated so much? I mean, I know Hitler hated them, but this was Russia before Hitler's time. Why were they so discriminated against? He said that, as with all discrimination, there is no real explanation for why. But they did seem to bear and unusually large brunt of hatred, and perhaps it was because they were "God's chosen people."
This is another book written in free-verse poetry. It's set in the early 1900s in New York at the time of the factory union strike. Having just read Uprising and studied the event from a historical perspective with my students, I felt like I really "got" the last half of this book which deals with the injustices rendered to immigrants in factories such as these during this time. The first half was less clear. It begins in Russia where Clara lives with her family in a shetl, which I had to look up - it's a small Jewish village. Her father and brothers spend all day studying and she is not allowed to go to school. Having come off the heels of studying Malala, this was appropriately infuriating. (I would love to do this with students and explore this issue, because they got really fired up about it this year!) I did have to email my history-teacher dad at one point though and ask what was up with Jews. Why were they hated so much? I mean, I know Hitler hated them, but this was Russia before Hitler's time. Why were they so discriminated against? He said that, as with all discrimination, there is no real explanation for why. But they did seem to bear and unusually large brunt of hatred, and perhaps it was because they were "God's chosen people."
I really adored this book. I think it would be hard to teach because it will be hard for kids to buy in, but I enjoyed it!
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