Excellent! Not written in Haddix's usual style. ( )

Told through flashbacks, Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix is an engaging work of historical fiction focusing on the lives of three young women growing up in the early 1900s. The book describes the events leading up to the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 that killed more than 100 people.

Haddix is a wonderful storyteller who brings the economic plight of young immigrants to life. The chapters follow each of the three main characters Bella, Yetta, and Jane as they fight for women's rights, labor rights, and respect in a world of class struggles and prejudice. Many photos of the actual events described in the book can be found online. These visual resources can really bring the book alive for all ages.

Triangle Factory Fire from Cornell
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefi...

Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html
Search for Triangle Shirtwaist Company ( )

Definitely one of the better novels in my research sample! Haddix portrays three characters in relation to the Triangle fire. Yetta wants to be like her older sister, a real radical, or so she thinks! Bella, an Italian worker, determinedly continues as her post during the 1909 strike. In one funny and poignant scene, she attempts to speak in the language she assumed was English, only to learn that she has actually learned Yiddish instead because so many of her co-workers were Russian and Eastern European Jews. Jane is a wealthy girl whose socialite friends introduce her to the lives of factory workers. Long after the inetrest of some of those friends has faded, Jane continues to seek out the Triangle workers and eventually ends up at the factory on that fateful day in 1911. Similar in many ways to Auch's "Ashes of Roses," "Uprising" manages to tell a compelling story while critiquing the underlying inequities of the system. ( )

Heart about from: Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm 10/17/2008

Three teens from diverse backgrounds (Italian Catholic Bella, Russian Jew Yetta, and wealthy Jane) experience the events leading up to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. Told in flashback by the only one of the three girls to survive the fire, the reader is kept guessing until the end which of the friends will escape. ( )