Lyddie

Rating:
Summary: what was it like at a mill
Review: Lyddie is historical fiction. The book talks about the mills and the factories through Lyddies eyes. Lyddie is telling the reader her life story. The book is letting us see how factory life was. You will see how dangerous it is to work in a mill at the age of 13 and working three or four looms at a time. You will find some advantages of working in the factory and some disadvantages.
(...)I would rate this book as a four because it starts of slow talking about Lyddie and her family. Then it gets good when she is at the mill. It is both fun and exciting reading about Lyddie's life long journey at the mill. The story also has some humor in the end. While reading the book you get to see what factory life was really like. The author, Katherine Paterson, goes into great detail about what it was like for Lyddie.

Rating:
Summary: Deep Troubles
Review: I do like the book but there is one part that makes me mad; it was the way Lyddie reacted to something. In chapter 6 a man breaks into her house and when she goes to check on it, she finds him there. She was going to run but then she came back and he apologized for being there. She reacted too calmly in my opinion. Perhaps people were more trusting then in the 1840s but being a reader today, there is no way that anyone would be that calm with a stranger in their house.

Text to Text Connection and Passage: In another part of the book, Lyddie says "Truth be told, mama had gone somewhat queer in the head after their father had left....her eyes blank and still as though her spirit had gone away and left the body there rocking on and on." To say this she seems very grown up for a 12 year old-and taking care of her brother, moving to find a better job, working so hard to pay off her father's debt. This type of character is rare, but could be realistic.
With the way Lyddie describes her, the mother in this book also reminds me of Molly Morgan; they both seemed out of it when their husbands left in search of a job or "vain riches." The daughters seem to have more authority than the mothers. (Yet the passage also interested me because it has a horror story type quality and sounds "deep," very descriptive, poetic.)

Critical Reaction:

The way she tackles her problems is like the bear in the beginning of the novel. She stares it down. She left the inn job that was treating her like a slave and she faced the horrible conditions of the mill. She also had no real family to confide in or give her support. The mistress breathed down her neck and expected her to be perfect. The author made the bear a metaphor for all of these problems.

The tone of the story is plaintive--a girl is sent off to work to pay off the dept that her father has left behind with a querulous boss who is constantly checking up on her. The mother also didn't tell the children to their face that she was going to "rent them out" but wrote them a letter. The author explains the situation to make the reader feel sorry for Lyddie.

The author gives many details to show how that time period of the Industrialization is similar and different to this time period. Like today, people are judged by the way they are dressed. People give tithing to the church. There are problems with the working conditions, but today we have unions to fight for the workers. Girls are trained to be wives and mothers, to do the work and take care of children but today women have more choices. So even though it is a fictional novel, the reader still learns about another time period.

Recommendation: This book is for patient readers; those that don't abandoned books after the first chapter. Don't expect any explosions but the action picks up in chapter 6. Chapters 1-5 show how the characters were living, how they were uneducated, and the time period. Yet if you enjoy history and how women or children were treated, this book is for you. This book can actually teach you something.

Rating:
Summary: Lyddie: A book with many important issues...
Review: When I first read Lyddie, I just thought it was a good story about a teenaged girl who was determined to have money to own the family farm and reunite her family. However, after some reflection, I realize that this book was more than that. It focuses upon working conditions, women's rights, sexual harrassment, illiteracy...important issues for today as well as the 1840 world of Lyddie. Lyddie is a young girl who is forced to grow up in order to support herself and one day have enough money for her family. She must go to the mill jobs in Lowell, Massachusetts to make the money. The working conditions are horrible, but Lyddie becomes the most productive worker there because she is driven to make money. She is, in today's terms, sexually harrassed by the overseer, but she still presses on. At one point, her need for money and security is so great that she won't even sign a petition for better working conditions, even though some of her friends are getting sick. Also, an issue in this book is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, which caused a lot of humiliation for women in the world of 1840. One of Lyddie's acquaintances is pregnant, but luckily finds someone to take her in as a servant.
Another important issue in this book is the need to be able to read. When Lyddie first arrives in Lowell, she can't read. But she listens to her roommates read Oliver Twist, and she is fascinated by the story and wants to learn how to read. It is "strategy" on the part of Patterson that they are reading this particular novel. Oliver Twist is about an orphan who must work, which is similar to Lyddie's predicament. In fact, I have heard Lyddie been called an "Oliver Twist for girls."
I highly recommend this book for young adults. It would work well for social science classes that are studying the 1800s or the working conditions throughout history. It is interesting to read, but it also contains issues that are relevant to today's world...and to today's teenagers. Most importantly, I think this book stresses the importance of determination, perseverance, and the need to take a stand for what is right. I believe these are qualities all people need to read about!

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse at life in the old days
Review: Lyddie, by Katherine Patterson, is a novel that every young girl should read. After reading this book, I believe, most students would be more grateful for what they do have. Lyddie is a young girl who must make it on her own, as a factory worker. She learns how to survive and even read through dedication and hard work. Lyddie is also a girl who feels she must help take care of her family. I wish more teenagers would read this book because it makes you admire a young person with such courage and stamina. I wonder how many of us could actually survive in Lyddie's world, after years of convenience!

Rating:
Summary: Lyddie's struggle
Review: This book is about a 13-year-old girl who tries to keep her family together by working at a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts. I had to read this book for a school project and it was quite a long book to read. By reading this book I learned quite a lot about the 1800's and about how hard some children had to work back then.

Rating:
Summary: Lyddie- a great read
Review: Lyddie is a wonderful character, full of spunk and determination. She will not give up no matter what. I thought this was a wonderful, terrific book. I would recommend it to any person who likes to read historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: My My My.....
Review: Well, It wasnt HORRIBLE, but it wasn't one of the wonderful books I have read, it was OKAY. I would reccomend reading it if you were studying about it...not for anything else

Rating:
Summary: Lyddie: A Review
Review: Lyddie by Katherine Paterson is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed and that I highly recommend. A young girl is sent by her mother to work in a tavern to pay the debt that the family has on the farm since her father left them. While there, she finds out that she can get higher pay as a "factory girl". She travels to Lowell, Massachusetts, and gets a job in a factory there. She makes friends, and is happy that she is making more money. But she is often faced with the problem of whether or not to sign the petition against unhealthy working conditions. Which is more important to her? Her job or her health? Will she get enough money to pay the debt before her evil uncle takes the farm? While the plot is a little slow getting started, it quickly becomes very interesting and suspenseful. This is a great book. The author did a wonderful job.

Rating:
Summary: The reform movement through the eyes of an ordinary person
Review: While I knew about the mills in Lowell in the 1800s, I'd never read a book about them. Katherine Paterson's wonderful novel tells all the details you'd want to know, from the broken warp threads on the mechanical looms to the crowded boarding houses where girls normally slept four or even six to a room. The book also touches on other issues like abolitionism, labor reform, women's rights and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Thirteen-year-old Lyddie was essentially sold into slavery in 1843. Her father, who had disappeared years before, had debts and Lyddie and her younger brother Charles had to work to pay them off. Meanwhile their mother had fled to her sister's house with her two youngest children. For a year Lyddie worked as a kitchen girl for an inn. It was dreadful work, sixteen hours a day or longer. The inn's owner sent fifty cents a week to Lyddie's mother when she could remember to do so.

Lyddie met a girl staying at the inn who wore a silk dress and seemed very rich. The girl worked at the weaving factories in Lowell, she told Lyddie, and got paid two dollars a week. Fascinated by the sum, Lyddie left the inn to work at the factories and hopefully fulfill her dream of paying off the debts and getting her family farm back. That's where the story really began.

The working conditions, by modern standards, were horrible. The machines made such a terrible noise you could hardly hear yourself think. You were on your feet most of time, tending three or four looms at once, for thirteen hours a day starting at 5:30. There were only half-hour breaks for breakfast and lunch. The lint that floated thickly in the air of the factories affected the workers' health, giving many of them potentially fatal lung problems from inhalation. Also, there was always the danger of a shuttle flying off the loom and hitting a worker on the head. Girls also got their long hair caught in the looms. It could pull the scalp clean off.

Nevertheless, the pay was good. Lyddie was essentially a slave to her wages, saving every penny that she could. She made friends with Diana Goss, who was a labor reformer, but refused to have anything to do with the movement. "If we worked ten-hour days we'd be paid less," she said plaintively. "Don't you see? We'd be paid much less." Lyddie lived and breathed her dream of getting her farm back, but that dream was shattered when her mother died in an insane asylum and her aunt and uncle sold the farm and kept the money. Lyddie was entrusted with the care of her young sister Rachel, and put her to work in the factory as well, but when Rachel started coughing she had to be sent away. Lyddie did the work and her bank account grew, but she was a machine as much as the looms were. She thought nothing and took no enjoyment in anything.

Meanwhile, Lyddie was having increasing problems with the overseer, Mr. Marsden. He was making sexual advances to her and other girls. When Lyddie finally caught him attempting to molest a friend of hers, she threw a bucket at him and was fired for "moral turpitude". Only then was she finally free, no longer a wage slave, and realized how much money could buy. Her hard life had strengthened her character and she decided to pass up the safety of marriage and go off to get an education. The story ends there.

I really enjoyed it. The detail was excellent and the characterizations good. It's a nice change to read a book about labor reform that's not written from the point of view of a reformer. Most people were like Lyddie, keeping their heads down and just doing their job. Kathering Paterson wrote an excellent book!

Rating:
Summary: Lyddie's life may be tough- but so is she
Review: When Lydia Worthen was 10, her father went West, leaving his unstable wife, son, Charlie, and Rachel, baby Agnes, and a debt behind. Now, at 13, Lyddie must pay it off.
Lyddie goes to work in the Lowell mills, dreaming of the debt payed off, Papa coming home, and pure happiness.
Lyddie befriends Diana, Bestey, and Amelia, who are workers just like she. And six days a week, dawn to dusk they labor.
Baby Agnes falls ill and dies of diphtiera. Mama is sent to an aslymn. Rachel is sent to live with Lyddie and Charlie and also falls ill. And Diana. Lyddie desides to protest for better working conditions.
She is laid off. Rachel and Charlie are sent to live with the Prettons, and then Lyddie gets a proposel.