The Clock [Paperback]

James Collier (Author), Christopher Collier (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1994 | Age Level: 10 and up

When her spendthrift father goes into debt after buying a sheep and the inner workings of a clock, fifteen-year-old Annie Steele is sent to work in the town's new wool mill to help support her family. Her job is full of risk -- especially after she and her friend Robert discover that the mill's cruel overseer is stealing bags of wool and decide to do something about it.

Annie longs for the chance to continue her schooling and become a teacher. Will she ever be able to leave the mill?

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1802, factories are being built across America, and 15-year-old Annie must go to spin at the local mill so that her improvident father can pay for a clock. However, the mill's corrupt overseer, aptly named Hoggart, makes improper advances toward her. With neighbor and potential sweetheart Robert, Annie gathers evidence against Hoggart, but Robert dies in a suspicious accident and Annie must struggle on with little help. Her eventual triumph over Hoggart has a bitter taste: Robert is dead, and she cannot yet follow her dream of becoming a schoolteacher. As in My Brother Sam Is Dead , the Colliers dramatize abstract historical issues in a realistic, small-town setting; they show changes in women's roles, in material goods and even in ways of seeing time (differences between sun time and clock time), as these topics affect the townsfolk's everyday lives. The novel thus succeeds not only as historical fiction, but also as a riveting story of the tragic romance and hard-won victory of one teenaged girl. Illustrations not seen by PW. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8-- Once again the Colliers have teamed up to write solid, well-researched, exciting historical fiction. Annie Steel, 15, lives in Connecticut in 1810, where the new textile mill heralds the beginning of a new age. Her spendthrift father, unable to resist such purchases as the newly invented clock, gets deeply in debt, and Annie must go to work in the mill. There she fends off the sexual advances of the cruel overseer who physically abuses the workers, even causing the death of Annie's disabled friend. When she discovers that the man is a thief, she bravely exposes him. In an addendum, the Colliers pose the question of whether or not progress--in this case the switch from ``sun time to clock time''--is always for the better. Annie is a memorabe character whose presence serves to point out the limited options available to women at that time. Fact and fiction are skillfully blended in this fast-paced, thought-provoking look at early 19th-century New England. --Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Yearling (December 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440409993
• ISBN-13: 978-0440409991
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,912,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good book for all kids and adults, September 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clock (Paperback)

the book was great even the end

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fasinating look at clocks and how to keep time, May 8, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Clocks (Great Inventions (Benchmark Books)) (Library Binding)

"Clocks," one of the volumes in the Great Inventions series, is not just about clocks but about keeping time going back to a piece of bone 30,000 years old, found in France, that bears scratch marks that are believed to have indicated the cycles of the moon. In this very informative volume James Lincoln Collier looks at how human beings have attempted to measure time through not only clocks but also calendars. The first chapter provides a lesson in how astronomy, the study of celestial bodies, established the relationship between the regular cycles of the planets, stars, Sun, Moon, and Earth and the measurement of time.

The next chatper is devoted to the start of timekeeping in the Middle East and the early methods used by the Romans, Chinese, and Mayans. Collier then focuses on the great "escapement," a term that refers to the device in a mechanical movement that controls the rotation of the wheels and therefore the motion of the hands on a clock. It was the invention of early devices using this principle that shifted people away from the system of unequal hours (just the idea that this was once the practice in Europe gives you a sense of the breadth and depth of detail in this volume). There are diagrams and a model of the legendary Su Sung Clock escapement mechanism that was powered by water and well as the Wells Clock of 1392.

Other chapters are devoted to the impact of springs and pendulums of creating new types of clocks, the decision to work out the problems in the Julian calendar (which was fractionally longer than the actual solar year), and how time was important to the question of navigation. The final chapters look at how clocks became inexpensive enough for everybody to have one so that by the end of World War II it was possible for everyone to know what time it was all the time, and the current state of time telling which is now all about atomic time for an atomic world.

What makes this an excellent book is that Collier consistently explains how and why things developed when it came to clocks, calendars, and other timekeeping devices and practices. I am one of the least mechanically inclined people on the face of the earth and do not even own a wristwatch, and I found this book fascinating. Collier takes the trouble of explaining how the devices worked in terms that even I can understand. The book is illustrated with historic prints as well as contemporary photographs and diagrams touching on the keeping of time. Other titles in the Great Inventions series look at "The Cotton Gin," "Gunpowder and Weaponry," "The Printing Pres," and "Vaccines."

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Clock is a bad thing!, June 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clock (Hardcover)

The book The Clock by James Lincoln Collier was an excellent book, although there were some not so great parts with good detail. There was a lot of talking and traveling about the late 1800s to the early 1900s that became boring and uninteresting, however Mr. Collier still did a good job with the details. The book took place in Connecticut on a farm. The main character is a girl who is forced to work in the mill because her father buys a lot of junk that puts her family in debt. Her brother is already working in the wood shop and her friend Rob is working in the mill. The mill headmaster is believed to be stealing wool and harassing the men and women working there. The ending will really surprise you if like historical fiction. The girl's friend, Robert, dies while deicing the water wheel, and the girl gets in a lot of trouble because no one is listening to her and her father wants her to stay in the mill.