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It is the peak of immigration in New York City, at the dawn of the twentieth century. Shouts in dozens of languages whoop through the air and smells from every dish imaginable waft through the streets of the Lower East Side. Tenements, rickety but home, climb the sky, fire escapes snaking down. The streets are crowded with pushcarts and calls. Thus is the setting for The Uprising, by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Bella is a young immigrant girl, fresh from Italy and weighted with the daunting task of providing for her family overseas. She is lucky to find a job, though the hours spent hunched over a sewing machine in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory are not quite what she expected.

Yetta has worked at Triangle for months. She lives with her equally rebellious elder sister, and, like Bella, sends most of her earnings home to her family in Russia. She is lively with life and pulsing with her want to change the world, to mean something, to matter. She wants women’s rights and safer conditions at work, shorter hours and higher wages. She is determined and fiery, willing to stand for months in the blistering heat and shivering cold, holding a picket sign and striking for union recognition in factories. Yetta is spirited and intense, gladly giving every bit of herself to her cause.

Jane, lastly, is a society girl with an intellectual spark. She is curious and compassionate, spending time with strikers and at rallies for no gain of her own, and finds herself swept up into this passionate world of striking and working and wanting and hoping. There is more to feel, she finds, outside of her ignorant, sheltered life. And these ardent factory girls so desperate for their cause accept her and love her—she finds a place with them that she cannot find at home.

Uprising is the story of these three girls. It is inspiring and adrenalizing (if that was not previously a word, I now deem it one), making me want to jump up and devote myself to a cause with all of my everything. On the other hand, the book does such a good job of enticing the readers into the world it creates, that it runs the risk of romanticizing poverty to some extent.

However, all in all, I love the way the book was crafted. The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory looms ahead for the entire novel. Right from the first chapter, we learn that two of the three best friends will die in the fire, though we do not know which ones they will be. This sets up an interesting dynamic--as I would read and get to know each character better, I would start to root for her to survive, before realizing, dismayed, that the other two would have to perish. It gave the book momentum and a reason for me to keep reading at the few moments the plot lagged.

Furthermore, the author was very skilled at weaving fiction and fact together, creating a story that haunts and perplexes, makes you think about the world and what you can do to change it, but also makes you care deeply for the three main characters. She succeeded in bringing life to a tragedy that occurred almost a hundred years ago. In making us care not only for the girls who died, but for the factory owners and the workers who survived as well. In painting a horrifying picture of flame and sky and the impossible choice—to jump or to burn? In making readers understand that if we want change to we have to fight for it, as the shirtwaist girls did in their months-long strike. The author wrote the story to make us u

Haddix, Margaret Peterson. 2009. Sent (The Missing, Book 2). Simon & Schuster. 313 pages.

Jonah was falling, tumbling over and over, down and down, through nothingness and absence and void.

Jonah and his sister, Katherine--being true friends--couldn't let Chip go alone. True, they didn't know where he was going exactly, though they had a handle on why, but whatever hardships come their way, they'll face together. Jonah and Chip are both adopted. But their mothers, their birth mothers, didn't come from the twenty-first century or even the twentieth. No, Jonah, Chip, and others like them--like Alex--are children "rescued" by future time travelers. You can read all about this mystery in the first novel in the series...Found.

Who is Chip? Who is Alex? I mean who are they really? These two kids are royalty. Chip being Edward V, and Alex, his younger brother, being Richard, the Duke of York. And now all four children are being sent back in time--by one faction of the future time travelers--to the fourteenth century. Chip and Alex were sent back in time to restore the past to what it should have been, to try to prevent damages to the timeline. But now that Katherine and Chip are part of it, plans have shifted a bit.

How well do you know your history? What do you know about the fourteenth century? If you're like Chip, Alex, Katherine, and Jonah, the answer is not much. What they do know--what soon becomes obvious--is that Chip/Edward and Alex/Richard are in danger. Richard of Gloucester is making a power play for the throne. And if history is destined to repeat itself, then these two may not be long for this world.

What did I like about this one, I mean, besides the time traveling bits? Well, I liked that Margaret Peterson Haddix uses a great historical mystery to tell her own story. What happened to those two boys has always been a mystery. Was Richard III a murderer? Did he hire someone to kill these two boys? If they did die of unnatural causes, how did they die...and when. Where the two skeletons unearthed centuries later really and truly their remains? Where these two smuggled to safely? Did they live out their lives in hiding? Is Richard III a monster like William Shakespeare portrayed him? Is Richard III evil incarnate? Or has history done him a great injustice?

This one offers a little history and mystery which combined with the more science fiction elements of the story make for a compelling read.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Hey, it's Carl again and I just finished two terrific books--really terrific books! Couldn't wait to tell you about them.

The first is Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix. She's famous for her Shadow Children series. I haven't read any of them (have you?) but I read a rave review of this new one so I checked it out. Wow! What a thrill ride! It starts with a plane that appears out of nowhere at an airport. When people go in to investigate, they find no pilot and no attendants. In fact, the plane is deserted---except that each seat has a baby in it! Fast forward thirteen years later. Jonah always knew that he was adopted and it was no big deal; he had a good home and great parents. Then he gets a strange letter that says, "You are one of the missing." A few days later he gets another one that says...well, you'll have to read it to find out!! Let me tell you, though, this is one book that won't let you go! You've got people that appear and disappear, government people with secrets, and mysterious people with plans for Jonah and his friends! PLUS, there's a big fight in a library!!!

The second is The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis, the latest 39 Clues book. This one is also a winner. Dan and Amy Cahill are headed to Japan to find the next clue and, right away, their seats are stolen by Ian and Natalie Kabra, separating them from Nellie Gomez, their au pair. Then the action really starts! You've got Amy with her foot caught on a subway rail as the train approaches, chases with yakuza (an ancient order of Japanese gangsters), a new bad guy, and one of the biggest secrets of the Cahill family!! This one was so absorbing that I missed my bus stop on the way home!

We'll anounce the Author Shoot-out Champion tomorrow. Stay tuned!