Release date: April 1, 2009
Pages: 242
Source: publisher
Age Group:Young Adult
Challenge:YA Historical Fiction Challenge
1905-1911, Essie Rosenfeld is a sixteen year old Jewish girl, living in the Lower East Side of New York, with her widowed mother, little sister Zelda and brother Saulie. Her little sister Zelda is sweet, but always wants to play hide and seek or go out in to the city streets with Essie, who doesn't have time for her because she has to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, or has to help her mother. One day her sister is tired of waiting for Essie and goes out onto the street by herself, with a dramatic end..
At her work in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, she meets a quiet and lost-looking girl: Harriet.Essie can tell from the moment she lays eyes on Harriet Abbott: this is a woman who has taken a wrong turn in life. Why else would an educated, well-dressed, clearly upper-crust girl end up in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory setting sleeves for six dollars a day? But Harriet isn't the only one who is lost. Essie wanders between the opposing emotions of her love for the young would-be lawyer who lives next door and her hatred for her mother who seems determined to take away every bit of happiness that Essie hopes to find. As the unlikely friendship between Essie and Harriet grows, so does the weight of the question hanging between them: Who is lost? And who will be found?
I was deeply impressed after finishing reading Lost, it was just fabulous in every single way.
The story is told in two parts. The chapter change from 1905 to 1911, and during that you know what drama happens to Zelda. With writing the story in this way, Jacqueline Davies does a great job to build up the drama, and I was just shocked to find out what happened to the cute little Zelda, which was just told in a few words, amazing! Another horrible drama that happens at the end is the cruel fire that caused many deaths under young girls, mostly immigrants new in America, in the Triangle Shirtwaits Factory where Essie works. Besides all the drama, the author brilliantly describes the poverty and the hard life of immigrants living in theLower East Side of New York in the early 1900's. If you love historical fiction, set in New York, just as much as I do, this is THE perfect book.
This is the second book I have read in the YA Historical Fiction Challenge where I am participating in
read more about this challenge here
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