Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Let's BookTalk: Sweep by Jonathan Auxier

from Goodreads.com

“She and her Sweep had both gone to bed as they always had, nestled against a chimney stack beneath the starry sky. But when the girl woke the next morning, her Sweep was gone” (p. 13).

Nan is an 11 year-old girl in the late 1800s. She is in contracted servitude to work as a chimney sweep, along with four other children ages 7 to 12. Food is scarce, work is dangerous, and there is very little for her to be hopeful for, except that someday her Sweep, original master, may one-day return. All she has left of him is his hat and a piece of char that still feels warm somehow.

The “Devil’s Nudge,” a dangerous method used by master chimney sweeps to get their chimney climbers (child laborers) unstuck from a chimney stack. They light a fire under the stuck child and they either scramble their way to freedom or burn.

One day while cleaning chimneys, Nan got stuck…

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A Note from Ms. Stimpson: I don’t often give my opinion on a book, as I prefer the reader to discover their own preferences in reading. However, there are not many stories often written as this one. Nor do all stories touch your soul. Sweep is one of those stories, because even in the darkness and despair, hope can make the darkness more grey than it had been before.

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