Washoe County Library System

"In this vibrant new historical novel, the acclaimed author of The Plum Tree and What She Left Behind explores one young woman's determination to put an end to child labor in a Pennsylvania mining town... As a child, Emma Malloy left isolated Coal River, Pennsylvania, vowing never to return. Now, orphaned and penniless at nineteen, she accepts a train ticket from her aunt and uncle and travels back to the rough-hewn community. Treated like a servant...

It's 1910 in Pownal, Vermont. At 12 Grace and her best friend Arthur must go to work in the mill, helping their mothers work the looms. Together Grace and Arthur write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in the mill. A few weeks later, Lewis Hine, a famous reformer arrives undercover to gather evidence. Grace meets him and appears in some of his photographs, changing her life forever.

Though eight-year-old Aidan and his friend Gussie want to go to school, like many other children in 1903, they work twelve hours, six days a week, at a cotton mill in Pennsylvania instead. So when the millworkers decide to go on strike, the two friends join the picket line. Maybe now life will change for them. But when a famous labor reformer named Mother Jones comes to hear of the millworkers demands, she tells them they need to do more than just...

After a mining accident kills her father and leaves her brother missing, twelve-year-old Ana puts her dreams on hold and goes into the mine to help her family survive in their impoverished Bolivian silver mining community.

Charles Dickens' 1850 classic epic, David Copperfield, unfolds the story of David, an optimistic and hard-working lad who's orphaned in his youth. Raised initially by his brutal stepfather, who halts David's schooling and sends him to work in a factory, David eventually finds a home with his eccentric, but kind aunt, Betsey. Later in life, David trains for a career in law, but eventually becomes a writer.

"Kept as forced labor on a chocolate plantation in the Ivory Coast, Amadou and his younger brother Seydou had given up hope, until a young girl arrives at the camp who rekindles the urge to escape"--

Child labor was common in the United States in the 19th century. It took the compelling, heart breaking photographs of Lewis Hine and others to bring the harsh working conditions to light. Hine and his fellow Progressives wanted to end child labor. He knew photography would reveal the truth and teach and change the world. With his camera Hine showed people what life was like for immigrants, the poor, and the children working in mines, factories, and...

The Nazis took Luka from his home in Ukraine and forced him into a labor camp. Now, Luka has smuggled himself out -- even though he left behind his dearest friend, Lida. Someday, he vows, he'll find her again. But first, he must survive. Racing through the woods and mountains, Luka evades capture by both Nazis and Soviet agents. Then he meets up with an underground army whose members are fighting Nazis and Soviets alike. But the desperate rescues...

A tribute to two Pakistani child heroes who risked their lives to fight for human rights includes the stories of Iqbal, who was executed for speaking out against child slavery, and Malala, who survived being shot after defending the rights of girls to attend school.