Lyddie

Rating:
Summary: Just How Much Can One Girl Take?
Review: Lyddie, a young girl, has to cope with the fact that her mother is going crazy and that her two little sisters are going (with their mother) to live at an aunt and uncle's house. She and her younger brother Charles do well alone, though, but their farm is in debt and the family has no money to pay for it. So both she and Charles are rented out to different families and places to try to make ends meet. Lyddie is barely earning anything, though, and she desperately wants her family to be reunited in their beloved farm. So she becomes a mill girl and has to live with the hardships of sickness, speeding machines, deaths, and her own worries.

Rating:
Summary: A Review that Counts
Review: Not even words can explain how amazing this book was. It was very well written by Katherine Paterson. Ever since I have read Lyddie, I have been interested in her work. Now, about the book. Lyddie is about a young girl who struggles to support her familly. She and her brother are sent away for work while their mother and the rest of the kids go off somewhere else. Their farm is left behind. Yet, so is hope for the return of their father. Lyddie ends up at a tavern, working her best for the little wage that was sent to her mother. Life was dull. Her brother, Charlie, had a good life. Lyddie set off to Lowell, to find work as a factory girl for better wages. Lyddie does not know of the experiences and changes she will go through. This book is very touching and very moving. I recommend this book to all the serious readers out there. If you do not like books, then I still suggest this. It's a good starter and advancer.

Rating:
Summary: omg
Review: LYDDIE WAS GAY!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: lyddie
Review: I thought this was an excellent book all about the struggles of a young girl who is alienated from her family to benifit all of them. I suggest that everyone who can understand quaker talk(a lot of thees and thys) read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Mary's Review on "Lyddie"
Review: "Lyddie" is a terriffic book. It really does something to your mind when you read it. It transports you to another time period, the time of the mill girls.

Two of the best elements of this book were the scenery and the characters. Each mill girl had a different personality. The girls could be seen very clearly in my mind's eye. The scenery was equally as vivid.

Patterson really went overboard while writing this book. It is the best book she ever wrote. I know because I read "Jacob Have I Loved", "Bridge to Terabithia", "The King's Equal", and many others by her. Anyone who reads this will agree. This is a great book.

Rating:
Summary: I was forced to read this book for school
Review: I was assigned this book to read over a span of three days, which proved simple as the book is no thicker than a magazine. The uncaptivating and predictable story line seemed even acceptable compared to the unrealistic characters. I concieved Lyddie, who values money more than her family and is too afraid to stand up for what she believes in for the sake of a paycheck, as entirely fictional. "We can still hop" that Catherine Patterson comes up with a better novel.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Lyddie
Review: Lyddie was one of the best books I have read in a long time! Katherine Patterson really did a great job writting it. She made the book come alive. The way she wrote and explaned everything made it easy to understand. Also, you felt like you could have been Lyddie and experienced the same kind of stuff she did.

I think the best part of the book was while Lyddie worked in the factory. It ws almost as if you were a factory girl yourself. The factory is where Lyddie basically grew up. You find out alot about her and her life.

One of the most vivid elements was the setting. Even though there were alot of settings, I can see each one so well. One of the best things she does is to compare things to real life, like "The machines were like big monsters!" Another thing Katherine Paterson does well is describing her characters. I can see a picture of each one in my head so clearly. If I had to pick them out of a line up, I could. I will definatley read more books by Katherine Patterson!

Rating:
Summary: My Review for Lyddie by Katherine Paterson
Review: The story of Lyddie by Katherine Paterson is an action-packed book that tells about a girl's life as a mill girl that runs the weaving looms. The parts that I liked were when she tries to reunite her family by trying to make enough money by working in a mill to pay off her house's morgage. The other part that I liked was when she risks her job to improve factory life. What I learned from this book was how a factory girl's life was in the 1800's. If she wanted to sign a petition for better conditions, she would be dismissed and not allowed to come back. This made a factory girl's life very hard to live, and I thought that Mrs. Paterson did a very good job of writing this book. She made it very interesting along with the true but horrible facts of factory life.

Rating:
Summary: The perfect link to Modern day Child Labor
Review: Writing in a different time and place poses a problem only to the author who is insincere, however, this is not the case in Katherine Paterson's novel, Lyddie. The young protagonist comes of age in her life changing experience when she confronts a bear and saves her family from its destructive path. Not the typical life changing experience of everyday youth, but it still evokes that awakening within the individual that allows the realization that anything is possible. This becomes Lyddie's motto in the face of any adversary conditions, she reminds herself that she once faced-off a bear and can therefore do anything.

The time is 1843 and Lyddie faces the struggles of poverty, child/slave-labor and the choices of the time that come with taking charge of one's own life. Her father has left them with the unfilled promise of returning. Then her mother deserts the family believing that the bear is the devil signifying the end of the world. This apparent illogical belief in superstition is a mark of the 1800s, as is the abuse of children which ensued with the growth of industrialism. She is first rented to a tavern in order to pay off the debt owed on her farm, but this over-worked and under-paid condition forces her to find another way of making the much needed money. She makes her way to Massachusetts with some help of Triphena, the tavern's cook, and a kind coachman who helps her get established at a Boarding house in Lowell. There she works at a factory, mastering the looms and making more than she thought was possible. Another coming of age experience is her conversation with the runaway slave who uses her deserted cabin as hide-out from his pursuers. Lyddie is surprised at his presence and then interested in the reward money that he might bring, but his eloquence and story forces her to empathize with his situation and she ends up lending him money to complete his journey. This debt is repaid later on with interest, proving Ezekial to be a man of his word.

The setting of Lyddie's humble farm, where she and Charlie lived on rabbit and moldy potatoes, contrasts greatly with factory life in Lowell where food is abundant enough to make her sick, and soot and noise are a part of the natural environment. Lyddie can no longer wear her worn clothes and misfitted shoes, that once was unimportant to her daily routine. She now has to be as impressive as the rest in order to maintain a lifestyle as a factory girl with a presentable image.

Paterson develops the sense of time and setting through the events specific to the environment of the 1800s. She also conveys this sense through the dialogue, incorporating the old English of the Quakers and the dialect of the poverty stricken country folk. The contrasts created demonstrate the changing society and the dilemmas that come with change. Lyddie is bent on repaying her debt for the farm and therefore chooses not to follow Diana's movement for reasonable hours at the factory. The story is as convincing as it is compelling because of the protagonist's innocence and determination to do what she believes is necessary and right. Lyddie may be young and naive, but it is an innocence, characteristic of the time when the uneducated and the deserted must take charge if not for themselves, then for their families. Her motivations are owed to Charlie and her younger siblings, since to her mind, there is no one else responsible for them.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic beginning for Jip, His Story
Review: When I was reading Lyddie, I felt that Ms. Paterson must have been exposed to the life of the Lowell mills girls. I believe that I am correct. When researching the diaries, letters, and old newpaper articles, I found many of the experiences that the girls endured to be widely experienced by many. The atrocities that Lyddie endures were universal among these young girls. a great read and just the beginning! Read Jip, His Story....then you'll have the REST OF THE STORY.