Frank Carlson Library

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.

Peony lives with her sister, Magnolia, and her grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. All Peony really wants is to be a bee. Even though she is only nine, and bees must be ten, Peony already knows all there is to know about being a bee and she is determined to achieve her dream. Life on the farm is a scrabble, but there is enough to eat and a place to sleep, and there is love. Then Peony's mother arrives to take her away from everything she...

A classic tale of an orphan growing up in the 1800's of England. Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, "David Copperfield" charts a young man's progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way. Jeremy Tambling's provocative Introduction reveals subtle themes relevant today in Dickens' favorite work.

Samantha is determined to help nine-year-old Nellie, attending school for the first time, with her school work and learns a great deal herself about what it is like to be a poor child and work in a factory.

Samantha is determined to help nine-year-old Nellie, attending school for the first time, with her school work and learns a great deal herself about what it is like to be a poor child and work in a factory.

Life in Bearmouth is one of hard labor and isolation, the sunlit world far above the mine a distant memory. Newt has lived in the mine since the age of four, and accepts everything from the harsh working conditions to the brutality of the mine's leaders--until the mysterious Devlin arrives and dares to ask the question, "Why?" As tensions rise, Newt is soon looking at Bearmouth with a fresh perspective--challenging the system and setting in motion...

In March of 1887, Rocco, an eleven-year-old from an Italian village, arrives in New York CIty where he is forced to live in squalor and beg for money as a street musician, but he finds the city's cruelty to children and animals intolerable and sets out to make things better, whatever the cost to himself.