Counting on Grace

by Elizabeth Winthrop Narrated by Lili Gamache

Overview

BONUS FEATURES: Exclusive author interview and a profile of Lewis Hine!

1910. Pownal, Vermont. At 12, Grace and her best friend Arthur must leave school and go to work as a “doffers” on their mothers' looms in the mill. Grace's mother is the best worker, fast and powerful, and Grace desperately wants to help her. But she's left handed and doffing is a right-handed job. Grace's every mistake costs her mother, and the family. She only feels capable on Sundays, when she and Arthur receive special lessons from their teacher. Together they write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in Pownal. A few weeks later a man with a camera shows up. It is the famous reformer Lewis Hine, undercover, collecting evidence for the Child Labor Board. Grace's brief acquaintance with Hine and the photos he takes of her are a gift that changes her sense of herself, her future, and her family's future.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

The feisty heroine of Winthrop's (The Castle in the Attic) novel set in a 1910 Vermont mill town brings child labor issues into sharp focus. Twelve-year-old Grace, who narrates, chafes against her teacher Miss Lesley's rules: "Seems she cares more about sitting still than learning." But when Grace must leave school to doff her mother's looms as an underage worker, she yearns for her former challenges. Winthrop effectively lays out the mill town's subsistence economy. Readers will understand why Grace's mother saved her deceased infant's papers in order to fake Grace's age (the child would have been 14, the age requirement for mill workers). One uplifting subplot follows Grace and classroom rival Arthur who become friends and co-workers in the mill and begin secret lessons with Miss Lesley. But the most compelling thread of the novel chronicles the mounting tension between Grace and her demanding mother, who dominates the other workers ("Only thing bigger and bossier than my mother in the spinning room is the frames"). The scene in which Arthur and Miss Lesley write the Child Labor Bureau may be rather forced, but a visit from Lewis Hine, who photographs the underage mill workers, feeding Grace's sense of connection to the world, seems believable. This enlightening novel explores the perils of mill work for children and adults alike. Readers will cheer when Grace uses her smarts to triumph over the mill store's corrupt bookkeeper, and the implication that she could well find a calling outside this mill town. Ages 8-14. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-Inspired by Lewis Hine's haunting photograph of a French Canadian girl in Vermont in 1910, Winthrop's compelling story vividly captures the mill experience. Grace Forcier and her friend Arthur, both 12 and the best readers in the mill school, are forced to suspend their educations to doff bobbins for their mothers' frames in the spinning room. While this is difficult for left-handed Grace, Arthur is desperate to escape the stuffy, sweaty, linty, noisy factory. Miss Lesley, their teacher, helps them write a letter to the National Child Labor Committee about underage kids, as young as eight, working in their mill. Grace understands the dilemma a response will cause. If the children don't work, the families won't have enough money to survive. Lewis Hine is the answer to the letter. He comes and photographs the mill rats, as the kids are called; no one will believe the conditions without pictures. Arthur, however, can wait no longer to carry out his escape plan. In a horrifying scene, he jams his right hand into the gearbox of the frame, painfully mangling it and losing two fingers. Miss Lesley's interference causes her to be fired, and she encourages Grace to be the substitute teacher, leaving readers with a sense that she will escape the mill and have a better life. Much information on early photography and the workings of the textile mills is conveyed, and history and fiction are woven seamlessly together in this beautifully written novel. Readers won't soon forget Grace.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

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)

From the Publisher

"History and fiction are woven seamlessly together in this beautifullywritten novel. Readers won't soon forget Grace." - School Library Journal, Starred"Vividly portrays mill life and four characters who resist its deadeningeffects. . . . Solid research and lively writing." - Kirkus Reviews"The child-labor story is gripping." - Booklist

AUG/SEP 07 - AudioFile

Lili Gamache creates a remarkably resourceful and sympathetic character in Grace Forcier, a 12-year-old girl who leaves school to work at the mill in a Vermont town in 1910. COUNTING ON GRACE is an excellent historical novel inspired by the real-life photograph of a mill child taken by child labor activist Lewis Hines. Grace is a wide-eyed girl who wants so much to help her family earn more money, to learn to read with her teacher on Sundays, and ultimately to become a teacher; and that enthusiasm and frustration are faithfully translated. Another highlight is Gamache’s interpretation of Grace’s mother as a proud French-Canadian mill worker and a force to be reckoned with. The music seems slightly overused but doesn’t mar a stunning production. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169930122
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/27/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

"Grace, your turn."
The book is called The Red Badge of Courage. I like that name. I stand up to read, but as soon as I open my mouth, my feet start moving. It always happens that way. I can't help it.
" 'The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight.' Miss Lesley, why don't the youth have a name?"
"Why doesn't the youth have a name," Miss Lesley says, but I go right on. She's always trying to fix our grammar, but we don't pay much mind.
"The writer should call him Joe or Henry or something."
In the front row, my little brother, Henry, giggles. Miss Lesley touches his head with her hand and he stops. At least she don't smack him with that ruler of hers.
"Grace, sit down when you read."
"I can't. I don't read as good. When I sit my brain stops working."
"Nonsense. Your brain works just like everybody else's. I want you to stay in one place when you read. Stop hopping around the room. Look at Arthur. He can sit still. Now you try it."
Arthur's desk is hooked up to mine and he never moves a muscle 'cepting his lips when he's reading. That's why Miss Lesley likes him the best. It's not only 'cause he's the best reader. It's 'cause he's a sitter and the rest of us are hoppers, jumpers, fidgeters. Arthur's twelve too, but he's four months older than me. I can read just as good as him so long as I can move around at the same time.
I go on. "'He could not accept with asshur—'"
"Assurance," Miss Lesley says. "That means he could not believe. Henry, sit up and listen. Your sister's reading a story."
I finish the sentence. "'. . . he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.'"
"Thank you, Grace. Please sit now. What do you think that means? Class?"
Arthur's hand goes up. Miss Lesley nods at him.
"The youth's going to be in a war."
"How do you know that?"
"I read ahead."
Arthur always reads ahead.
"And if you hadn't read ahead, Arthur?"
" 'Cause there are soldiers in the story. If there are soldiers, there's gonna be a war."
"Right. This is a story about the Civil War. Some of you children could have had grandparents who fought in that war."
"Not me," says Dougie. "My grandparents lived in Ireland."
"Me either," yells Felix. "My grandparents were born in Canada."
Miss Lesley claps her hands for silence. The whole time she's teaching, Miss Lesley moves around the room, keeping us kids in order. I'm back at my desk, but my feet are dancing underneath. Miss Lesley slaps them with her ruler whenever she passes by. I pretend I don't even feel it. Seems she cares more about sitting still than learning.
"You older children go on reading among yourselves now. One sentence each, then pass the book."
I hate that. I like to hear my voice doing the reading. Or Arthur's. Thomas mumbles so you can't understand him and Norma just pretends to read and Rose is too busy twirling her hair around her finger and staring at Thomas. I hate when the story goes too slow. Then I forget what's happening.


***


It's Arthur who's reading when we hear footsteps outside on the wooden porch, the thunk of a boot against the step to knock off the mud. We get still. The man coming through that door understands that Miss Lesley don't like dirt in her classroom.
We know who it is. We know what he's going to say. I sneak a peek at Arthur, who's put the book down. For once.
Miss Lesley has her ruler raised and suddenly she stops moving too.
The door opens. French Johnny pokes his head in first, almost like a little kid asking permission. He went to this schoolhimself. He knows how hard the benches can be after a day of sitting. He knows every hook by the door and the way the handle of the coal stove wriggles out and slams to the floor when someone ain't paying mind. French Johnny is the second hand at the mill. He's in charge of the spinning room where my mother runs six frames. He's come up the hill in his white apron to get a mill rat. That's what they call the kids who work in the mill. We all end up as mill rats.
"Yes?" Miss Lesley says with no respect in her voice. She might as well be talking to a second grader like my brother, Henry.
"Come for the boy," says French Johnny. He sounds like he don't want to be here. He knows she won't let this one go without a fight. Truth is she argues with him over every single one of us.
"Well, you can turn around and walk right out of here. You're not taking him," says Miss Lesley, keeping her back to barrel-bellied French Johnny. She's acting as if he's no bigger than one of those sow bugs come out of the woodwork this time of year. "Class, I want you to pay attention to the board. We're going to make the sound of these two letters." Her ruler smacks the CH. "Chuh," she says to the younger ones. "Repeat after me. Chuh."
But nobody says nothing. We're all waiting and watching French Johnny.
"Chuh," she says again, her voice rising. She's getting angry.
Nobody speaks.
I can't stand silence like that.
"Chuh," I say, and two of the little kids laugh.
French Johnny is all the way in the room now. He's squirmed around the door and closed it behind him.
He signals to Arthur, who pays him no mind.
 

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