Mill

Rating:
Summary: Mill
Review: A wonderful story that takes the reader through the life and times of an infant small village mill into the mature years of a 20th century factory-mill. Excellent illustrations, and fun storyline that allows the reader to become involved with the life of the mill. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Mill is, simply put, remarkably well crafted. In it, David Macaulay gives us a brief history of the beginnings of the textile industry in America, walks us through the planning and construction of four successively more complex mills, lavishly illustrates the buildings, the machines and their power sources and, at the same time, manages to thoroughly convince us that we would never want to work in one.

This last trick is subtle and, to my knowledge, doesn't appear in any of the other books in this series. From Cathedral, City and, to a lesser extent, Castle, you get the distinct feeling that these were great and noble projects that you would have loved to have been a part of. You get this sense too from Mill, but the heady rush that comes with the idea of building something from the ground up is tempered by small, fictional diary entries that betray the harshness of life for those who worked in the mills after their completion.

Mill is a strong contender for a place in your personal and permanent library. It is beautifully illustrated, historically grounded, thoroughly researched, accented with social commentary and, most importantly, it is an enjoyable, absorbing read.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Mill is, simply put, remarkably well crafted. In it, David Macaulay gives us a brief history of the beginnings of the textile industry in America, walks us through the planning and construction of four successively more complex mills, lavishly illustrates the buildings, the machines and their power sources and, at the same time, manages to thoroughly convince us that we would never want to work in one.

This last trick is subtle and, to my knowledge, doesn't appear in any of the other books in this series. From Cathedral, City and, to a lesser extent, Castle, you get the distinct feeling that these were great and noble projects that you would have loved to have been a part of. You get this sense too from Mill, but the heady rush that comes with the idea of building something from the ground up is tempered by small, fictional diary entries that betray the harshness of life for those who worked in the mills after their completion.

Mill is a strong contender for a place in your personal and permanent library. It is beautifully illustrated, historically grounded, thoroughly researched, accented with social commentary and, most importantly, it is an enjoyable, absorbing read.

Rating:
Summary: To Whole Cloth
Review: This is an important book. Written for children, it can be used just as effectively by adults to comprehend the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the United States. Learn and see how men tamed our rivers and how men, women and children were swallowed up in these great monuments to progress.

The illustrations are remakable. David Macaulay deftly describes and illustrates how the technology that made America a world industrial power came to the young new country and how American ingenuity improved it and made the nation into a world class economic juggernaut.

The author is a superb story teller, and anyone who would like to visualize the nature of mills and to understand the profound impact of this technology on our country should read it.

I highly recommend this great children's book to everyone.