NOTE ON SPELLING: British and American spellings are preserved from original document titles.
Adler, Susan S., Nancy Niles, R. Grace, Jeanne Thieme (Editor)
Samantha Learns a Lesson: A School Story
(American Girls Collection), Pleasant Company Publications, April 1991
ISBN: 0937295833
Ages 9-12
Anderson, Hans Christian
The Little Match Girl
Many editions, including one relocated to the United States. Hans Christian
Anderson's classic story
tells of a poor girl who leaves home on a freezing New Year's Eve to try to
sell matches.
Collier, James Lincoln and Christopher Collier
The Clock
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1992), (Econo-Clad Books, 1999)
ISBN: 0785754113
Ages 9-12.
"A story set in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution portrays the trials
and tribulations
of Annie Steel after her father forces her to work in the town's new textile
mill, where her dreary days
are governed by a clock." (Review from Amazon.com.) Annie is 15 when
she leaves her family's farm in Connecticut.
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield
Many editions, including Everymans Library (1991), ISBN: 0679405712.
Dickens, Charles
Adventures of Oliver Twist
Many editions, including Oxford: Oxford University Press (Trade), (1987), ISBN:
0192545051.
Oliver Twist, an orphan pauper child1 in 19th century England, is
put to work so that the
parish will not have to pay for his upkeep.
Garcia Sanchez J. L., Miguel Angel Pacheco, Carme Sole Vendrell, J. L. Garcia
Sanchez,
El Nino Gigante (Los Derechos Del Nino, or The Rights of Children)
(Santillana
Pub Co., 1995); ISBN: 1560145803
Ages 4-8.
Howard, Ellen
The Gate in the Wall
Atheneum, 1999; ISBN: 0689822952, 128 pages.
Story of an orphan working in a silk factory who escapes and begins working
for the owner
of a barge that plies the canals in Victorian England.
Jackson, Dave, Neta Jackson, David Jackson, Julian Jackson
The Chimney Sweep's Ransom (Trailblazer Books)
(Bethany House, 1992), ISBN: 1556612680, 140 pages
Ages 8-12.
McCully, Emily Arnold
The Bobbin Girl
(New York: Dial Press, 1996), ISBN: 0803718276
Elementary, ages 4-8.
Rebecca, a 10-year-old bobbin girl in a mill in Lowell, Mass., in the 1930s,
leads co-workers out on strike.
Peck, Robert Newton, Arly
(New York: Walker and Co, 1989), ASIN: 0590434691.
Out of print, but available in libraries and special stores.
"Although Arly Poole seems bound to follow in his father's footsteps as a field
worker in Jailtown, Florida, where
his family lives in 1927 in the shadow of a cruel boss, his world suddenly seems
larger when a schoolteacher
comes to town. (This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition
of this title from Amazon.com.)
Paterson, Katherine
Lyddie
(New York: Lodestar/Puffin, 1991, 1992), 182 pages, ISBN: 0140349812.
Young adult.
"After her father abandons the family, young Lyddie Worthen's mother hires the
young girl out to
pay his debts. A superb story of grit, determination, and personal growth. (Review
from The Horn Book,
quoted on Amazon.com.)
Stoler, Sigmund
Working in Darkness -- A Play About Coal Mining
(Carlisle, MA: Discovery Enterprises, Ltd., 1996), ISBN: 1878668668.
"This one-act nonfiction play for middle and high school students is laid in
a coal-mining town in the 1900s.
It depicts the severity of the work of the rise of unions and the need to understand
the danger in working in a mine."
(Review from Amazon.com).
Tucker, Terry Ward
Moonlight and Mill Whistles
Unknown, 1998; ISBN: 1887714324
Williams, Sherley Anne, Working Cotton
(New York: Voyager/Harcourt Brace, 1992), 32 pages, ISBN: 0152014829. Reprint.
Ages 4-8. "A
child1's view of a long day's work in the cotton fields is simply expressed with
poetic text and
impressionistic illustrations, in an introduction to migrant family life."
Winner of the Caldecott Honor and selected as a
Coretta Scott King Honor Book. (Review from from Amazon.com).