Uprising
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Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK -- School Library Journal, 5/2/2008
Uprising (unabr.). 10 cassettes or 10 CDs. 11 hrs. Recorded Books. 2007. cassette, ISBN 978-1-4281-7303-3: $88.75; CD, ISBN 978-1-4281-7308-8: $108.75.
Gr 6-8–In this novel (S & S, 2007), Margaret Peterson Haddix steps back in history to present the fascinating story of three very different 15-year-old girls living in New York City in 1910. Bella is fresh off the boat from Italy and bewildered when her companions are refused entrance at Ellis Island. She contacts a distant cousin who takes her under his wing and gets her a job working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where she meets Yetta, a fiery Russian Jew, who is determined to change the horrific sweatshop conditions. Yetta takes up the banner to establish a union, and with hundreds of workers, goes on strike in protest. Jane is an upper class socialite trapped in a joyless mansion and destined to marry well to improve her father’s business contacts. Jane’s friends from Vassar invite her to visit the picket line where fashionable women are playing with social politics. The strike is unsuccessful, but the three girls become friends and, eventually, tenement roommates. They are all present when a catastrophic fire breaks out in the sweatshop, and the fate of each girl is not revealed until the end of the novel. The tale is presented from the alternating viewpoints of the three girls, and narrator Suzanne Toren is brilliant, handling multiple voices with ease. The story encompasses information about immigration, women’s rights, and the labor movement at the turn of the century. This is historical fiction at its finest.
