Three Strike Summer by Skyler Schrempp

"First the rain stopped falling. Then the wheat stopped growing. Then the dust storms started coming. Then the tractor stopped working, and the jars in the cellar started dwindling, and Pa stopped joking and joshing like the words dried right up in his mouth."

Times are so hard. The have to leave the farm. This is the place where the young child Little Si is buried. Gloria is in such a rage. Everything is so unfair. She picks up a rock and hurls into the window of the bank manager's car!

"Gloria. Mae. Willard. ... I ain't ever been as mad with one of kids as I was today. Never. But I never raised a hand to you, and I'm not about to start. ... I raised you better than to be smashing things up and cussing at your sister and paying no mind whatsoever to your ma, so you knock it right off, hear?"

Gloria is the wild child of the family. She is not afraid to speak up especially about an injustice. One of the biggest of these in her life is that the boys will not take her seriously when she says she wants to play baseball. Gloria knows she is a fine pitcher but those boys won't even give her a chance. 

"She'd been sneaking off whenever they practiced and hanging around the baseball diamond, waiting and hoping they'd give me a chance."

And now they have to leave their farm and Gloria will have to find a new team and start all over again to try to convince these new kids that she sure is a real fine player. What will happen on this new farm in California? The family, and all farm workers, are treated so badly by the farm manager. Picking peaches is hard, hard work. And there are so many rules. Things were bad before but now they seem way worse. At every turn the family debits are rising. But for Gloria there is one glimpse of happiness - she manages to talk her way in the boy's gang and their baseball team and there is a big game lined up with kids on the next farm. Surely, with Gloria on their team, her gang will win. And somehow this will also make things fairer for her folks and for the other workers. All of this will mean breaking the rules and keeping secrets from the adults but Gloria is so determined to win and also to expose the corruption she has witnessed among the farm bosses. 

"When you don't fight for what you deserve, the world just digs its heel into you little bit more. If you don't speak up for yourself, probably no one else will ... "

Three Strike Summer is a punchy, inspiring historical middle grade book about family, baseball, and life on farms during the Great Depression. Featuring a spunky female protagonist who won’t take no for an answer, this book explores a wide range of themes from gender inequality to poor worker compensation and dealing with death and grief. Reading Middle Grade

This is one of those books that I just 'gobbled up'. I read it as an ebook during my recent trip. I love the way Skyler Schrempp describes the door knocking pattern - "a shave and a haircut, two bits". This book will also give readers a wonderful insight into life during the Great Depression and the beginnings of workers unions, worker saftey and workers rights. Listen to an audio sample read by the author. Here is the web page for Skyler Schrempp. 

I cheered when I read the review by Betsy Bird:

Three Strike Summer? The pun in the name is the name of the game. This here’s a baseball book, loud and proud. You’re fairly sure of the fact when, in Chapter One, Glo uses her golden pitching arm to nail a rock through that car window of the bank man repossessing their house. ... I don’t know it for a fact, but suspect a person wholly unaware of the rules of the game would still get swept up in Schrempp’s storytelling. ... For me, one of the best parts of the book was an almost off-handed comment from Glo’s ma late in the story. At the beginning of the book Glo is furious and baffled by her mother’s willingness to just pick up and leave the family farm without so much as a blink. When at last Glo is able to ask her about it, almost at the end of the book, her ma says honestly, “Aw, Gloria… You couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to keep on living in a house that my baby died in.” Glo’s little brother died, probably because of the Dust Bowl, in that home. It’s so simple and so human and so understandable. Plus, I love children’s books where kids get this sudden clarifying instant where they can see everything adults have to go through and try to hide.

Narrated by Gloria in a conversational tone that brings the setting to life, readers feel her grief, outrage, and gritty determination. Descriptions of the Dust Bowl years and hardscrabble life in the camps are searing, and Gloria matures as she learns about others’ struggles. While she organizes a ballgame, Pa organizes the peach orchard workers to strike for better conditions only to be betrayed. Pa is in danger of being clobbered by police until Gloria and her teammates intervene, illustrating the importance of hope, honor, and team spirit in combating hardship. An informative author’s note explains the historical context, including the reasons behind the all-White communities Gloria inhabits. Kirkus Star review

Here are some text quotes to give you a flavour of this writing:

"I knew that bank man was coming. I knew what he was there for. And I knew what would happen when he was done with us."

"He had taken the bank man outside so we didn't have to hear him beg."

"I wanted to belong somewhere, even if it wasn't Oklahoma. I wanted to be someone people listened to, even if I was loud sometimes and maybe said the wrong thing once in a while. ... And I wanted to play ball for real, not just by myself, knocking old apples out of a tree with a creek tone, or watching everyone else play. I wanted to be on a team."

"I missed her biscuits. I missed her breads. I missed her green beans ... I missed smoky bacon and golden, runny egg yolks. I missed her blackberry jams, dark and sweet enough to keep a smile on your face all night. And fritters fried."

"Anyone congregating in groups at any time of day will be personally escorted off the property. We employ good, decent folks here, not lazy sons of guns, not rabble-rousers, not Reds."

"Meanness is funny like that. The bigger you get the smaller, they have to make you feel."

"I just wat there trying not to see Davey falling again and again. Kicking myself for telling him to go up that ladder in the first place. Downright dumb. Downright selfish."

Companion books:

Read more here

Someplace to call Home

Echo Mountain

The Little Match Girl Strikes Back by Emma Carroll illustrated by Lauren Child

 

Bridie Sweeney wants to tell you a better story, a more truthful story, a less tragic story about the real little match girl. The year is 1887 (the year my own Grandmother Amy Elizabeth was born).

The old story was "so sweet and sad, people would snivel into their hankies upon reading it, and it soon because famous the world over. It made the man who wrote it very rich indeed, though I don't suppose he'd ever met a real match girl in his life. If he had he'd have know we weren't all pretty things with fair curls and tiny, freezing hands, and that most of us were fed up with being hungry all the time."

Bridie lives with her mother, who works at the match factory, and her younger brother Fergal. They live in a tiny room and just scrape by with small wages from the factory and the few coins Bridie makes selling matches in London's East End. 

Conditions in the factory are dreadful. Mam, and the other women who work there, are subject to the poison of the phosphorus from the matches (phossy jaw). There is no ventilation in their work space and they cannot wash their hands before eating. 

"I couldn't imagine how bad it was inside the factory building. Mam was a dipper, dunking the matchsticks in phosphorus, which meant she - and many others like her - stood bent over the stuff all day long without so much as an open window for air."

The factory is based on the real one The Bryant and May factory. Here are their match boxes:

Image source: National Archives UK

Bridie sets out to sell her matches and on this day things go well at first. She sells all of her boxes and is able to pick up another set from the factory. But this is when things go badly wrong. She is nearly killed when a carriage containing the factory boss hits her. All of her matches are spilled, her tray is smashed and the too big slippers, which belong to her mam, are lost. Bridie has only three damaged matches left. She strikes each of them in turn, and, as in the original tale, she enters a series of visions. She experiences the excesses of the rich factory boss and his family at their dining table. Then she meets a activist who wants to support the factory workers and demand change. Finally she is given a glimpse of her final wish - "I wish to see my family living a better life".

This is historical fiction at its best. At the back of the book there are notes which explain the context of factory workers, match production, the role of the activist Annie Besant (1847-1933) who published letters in newspapers all over England which led people to support the striking factory workers. It all takes a long time but by 1908 the use of white phosphorus is banned. 

The production of this book is scrumptious!  Yes I am using the word scrumptious.  This hardcover book costs under AUS$20 and it has a dust jacket (you know I adore them) and a different image under the jacket (another aspect of book design that I really appreciate). The illustrations by Lauren Child are perfect too. If you have a young reading companion aged 10+ I highly recommend this book. It would be a perfect Christmas present.

It’s a thrilling tale and Bridie is a wonderful character brought stunningly to life in Lauren Child’s magnificently beautiful illustrations, many of them based on real photographs of match sellers and workers from the time. The innovative layout of the text makes this a particularly vibrant read. Emma Carroll and Lauren Child are a brilliant pairing and this book would make a wonderful gift. Book Trust

Further reading

Kids Britannica "Match girls' strike"

English Heritage 

Historic UK

Spartacus Educational

I would follow this book with these:

Counting on Grace

Bread and Roses Too

Of course you will also want to revisit the original story. Some very talented people have illustrated versions of this famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale - Jerry Pinkney; Rachel Isadora; Kveta Pacovska; Kestutis Kasparavicius and Hye-Won Yang.

I have previously talked about several books by Emma Carroll:

Letters from the Lighthouse

Sky Chasers

The Week at World's End

In Darkling Wood

The Ghost Garden

The Orphan band of Springdale by Anne Nesbet

"(The) letter described some lamentable instances of exploitation and injustice ... So I've come, to support the fine work of the Federation of Woolen and Worsted Workers and to organize our brothers and sisters in the mills and shoe factories."

Gusta is a character who will linger with me for a long time. She is wise, determined and strong. It is 1941 and later this same year America will enter WWII. Suspicion is growing against 'aliens'. Neubronner sounds foreign and so does Bertmann. Even more suspicious Mr Bertmann, the oculist, has pigeons and he is training them to carry cameras.  But Mr Bertmann is a true friend to Gusta. He is able to provide her with glasses and suddenly her world comes into focus.

Gusta and her father are travelling to Springdale in Maine but on their last stop her father leaves the bus and does not return. Gusta is so worried about him. Men are hunting him.

"Their eyes looked like mysterious dark pools to Gusta. ...and the men were in uniforms, and that was how she knew the thing they had been dreading and expecting all these months, even years ... "

Gusta has with her a French Horn. At the orphanage, run by her grandmother, she meets a wonderful girl called Josie. Josie has a beautiful singing voice so the girls form their band with Gusta's cousin Bess but this is just a diversion from the real issues driving Gusta.  She meets her uncle and learns about his factory accident. His hand is bound up tight with scars and he has been dismissed. Gusta's father, a union activist, has shown her workers have rights. Gusta is determined to right this wrong and help her uncle but she will need a lot of money to do this.  If you click on either of the review quotes below you can read more of the plot.

Initially I liked the cover but now that I have read this gutsy book about unions and human rights I am not so sure - it is perhaps a little too 'pretty'.  I rarely give star ratings as you know but I give The Orphan Band of Springdale 5 stars out of 5. I especially enjoyed all the tension created by Anne Nesbet as Gusta finds herself in one predicament after another. This is a book which should be in your school library.

A big thank you to Beachside Bookshop for giving me this advanced reader copy of The Orphan Band of Springdale.  Here is an audio sample from the first chapter of this book.  Here is a detailed set of discussion questions.  This book would be perfect for a senior grade book discussion group.  Read an interview with the author.  I would follow this book with another favourite of mine -  Bread and Roses, too.

Sometimes suspenseful and always engaging, this snapshot of determined Gusta and life before the war is sure to captivate readers. Kirkus

Sometimes kids just need a book to cozy up with in an overstuffed chair, a secluded treehouse, or a nest of pillows. This is exactly that book. Elizabeth Bush

Bread and roses, too by Katherine Paterson

I do enjoy Historical Fiction for children especially when the setting and experiences relate to Industrialisation. For this reason I loved Bread and Roses, too by Katherine Paterson.

Some of my Year 6 girls had read this one and were very surprised to discover I had let it slip by. Of course I purchased this book based on the author, Katherine Paterson. I have always loved her books – not just Bridge to Terabithia, more recently I read Same stuff as stars and remember enjoying Lyddie which is also a Historical novel set in a weaving factory. 

Bread and Roses, too is Katherine latest novel published in 2006. The Historical note at the end is so interesting as it explains the context of the 1912 Textile workers strike and the possible origin of the slogan ‘Bread and Roses, too’.

In this book we get a vivid picture of poverty, family life and friendship. The ending is really very satisfying as Jake finds his new family and Rosa returns to hers, full of hope for a better future.

You can read a more detailed review of this book in the New York Times.

The history is neatly woven into this story that explores the true meaning of community and family in hard times. A fine historical note provides additional background. Paterson at her best—and that’s saying a lot. Kirkus Star review

The timing for my reading of this book was perfect as I have just finished watching the television mini series North and South based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell which also involves textile mill workers, poverty, strikes and a very strong and feisty main female character!