Bread and Roses, Too

New York Public Library Best Books for Teen Age, 2007
Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2007
VOYA’s 2006 Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers
Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, 2007
Christopher Award, 2006
Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, Fall 2006, Historical Fiction

Rosa’s mother is singing again, for the first time since Papa died in an accident in the mills. But instead of filling their cramped tenement apartment with Italian lullabies, Mamma is out on the streets singing union songs, and Rosa is terrified that her mother and older sister, Anna, are endangering their lives by marching against the corrupt mill owners. After all, didn’t Miss Finch tell the class that the strikers are nothing but rabble-rousing uneducated, violent mob? Suppose Mamma and Anna are jailed or, worse, killed? What will happen to Rosa and little Ricci? When Rosa is sent to Vermont with other children to live with strangers until the strike is over, she fears she will never see her family again. Then, on the train, a boy begs her to pretend that he is her brother. Alone and far from home, she agrees to protect him . . . even though she suspects that he is hiding some terrible secret. From a beloved, award-winning author, here is a moving story based on real events surrounding an infamous 1912 strike.

PUBLISHER: Sandpiper, Paperback
ISBN 9780547076515