From School Library Journal
Grade 4–6—It is 1854, and in Westfield, MA, trouble is brewing. A wave of Irish immigrants has been coming to town, first to work on a canal and later to work in one of the local whip factories. Their growing presence is a threat to the "Yankees" who have settled there, and the novel opens with a sense of impending doom. In the midst of the turmoil, Charlotte Hodge befriends one of the Irish girls at school. Maggie Nolan's life is very different from hers-Charlotte's guardian operates a whip factory and Maggie's father works for him-yet the two fifth graders quickly become friends, resulting in Charlotte being harassed and bullied by the other Yankee girls and Maggie being pressured by her family to end the relationship. When trouble finally comes, the girls' steadfast friendship helps diffuse the mob threatening to burn down the new Catholic church. Mixing historical fact with dramatic tension, Hurst's fast-moving and interesting novel will spark discussions about prejudice and racism, and introduce readers to the anti-Irish sentiments of this era.—
Elizabeth M. Reardon, McCallie School, Chattanooga, TN Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"They've taken our jobs." "They should keep to their own." Hurst uses a historical event that occurred on the eve of the Civil War--rioters' attempt to burn down a Catholic church in Westfield, Massachusetts--as the dramatic centerpiece of this spare novel. The story unfolds through the viewpoint of an 11-year-old Yankee girl, Charlotte, who makes friends with her Irish classmate, Maggie, as the tension rises between their communities. Recently orphaned in a cholera outbreak, Charlotte and her older brother, Zach, have been taken in by their uncle, who owns a factory. He hires Irish workers, but his wife objects, and so does furiously racist Zach. There are no saintly characters here. The potato famine has driven the Irish from home; the Yankees came to America because they could not make it in England. People are suspicious of one another, angry, and on edge. The parallels with today's conflicts make this great for discussing with the books on the "New Immigration" list in
Booklist's August 2005 issue, and teachers may want to use the friendship scenes, set apart by italics, for readers' theater.
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
