Coal River

November 23, 2015
In 1912, 19-year-old Emma Malloy is left without resources after the death of her parents. She returns to the place of her childhood nightmare: Coal River, Pa., a dank mining town where her brother died tragically young. Emma is forced to live with her abusive aunt and uncle, and she quickly realizes that young "breaker boys" are illegally working in the mines, suffering injuries and death, while the mine owner rakes in the profit. Unwilling to stand by silently while more mining families suffer, Emma secretly joins forces with a young miner who hopes to instigate a strike. Conflict between the workers and their corrupt management bring the town to its kneesâand Emma's courageous plan brings the world to their doorstep. Wiseman (What She Left Behind) offers heartbreaking and historically accurate depictions of the dangerous mines, the hopeless workers, and their improbable fight for justice. The richly developed coal town acts as a separate, complex character; readers will want to look away even as they're drawn into a powerful quest for purpose and redemption. The improbable ending, in which every plot strand is neatly tied up, undercuts the realism of the otherwise powerful story.

December 1, 2015
Emma Malloy has faced more than enough tragedy in her young life. Having lost her brother to drowning and then both her parents in a theater fire, she is engulfed in grief when she travels to stay with her aunt and uncle in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town in 1912. But her own troubles soon fade when she is confronted with the harsh realities of life for the miners. She soon learns that the crippled boys she sees are put to work in the mine, in violation of state law, and that the miners are trapped in a generational cycle of debt from which there is no easy escape. She soon casts her lot with the charismatic leader of an effort to unionize the miners, and the situation quickly comes to a dangerous and violent head. Emma is single-minded in her quest, only slightly less one-dimensional than the rest of the characters. However, that deficiency is more than offset by the heartrending and strongly drawn historical details of the boys working in the mine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)