COUNTING ON GRACE

Twelve-year-old Grace is proud to be one of the best readers at school, but she’s pulled out to be a doffer at the mill, her parents happy to have the extra money coming in. Then Miss Lesley, her teacher, conspires to contact the National Child Labor Committee about the hiring of underage children in the mills. Lewis Hine, the now-famous photographer for the NCLC, arrives to document conditions and ends up befriending Miss Lesley, Grace and her friend Arthur. Inspired by a Hine photograph of a young Vermont mill girl, Winthrop has woven a fine story to complement Hine’s visual document. She vividly portrays mill life and four characters who resist its deadening effects. Readers familiar with Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie (1991) will see a kindred spirit in Grace Forcier. Solid research and lively writing make this a fine historical novel, a perfect companion to Russell Freedman’s Kids at Work (1994). (about Lewis Hine, the story behind the photograph, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 8-12)