Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children

Starred review from November 1, 2019
Winter focuses on Mother Jones' Children's Crusade to introduce young readers to the history of protests against child labor. "My name is Mother Jones and I'm MAD. And you'd be MAD, too, if you'd seen what I've seen." Thus begins Mother Jones' first-person narrative about her long career fighting child labor practices in the early 20th century. The first pages depict Mother Jones in front of smoky factories, in West Virginia coal mines, and in Philadelphia fabric mills, where white and brown children toil "for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT." Her anger at what she saw led Mother Jones to organize the central event of the volume, a children's march from Philadelphia to New York City to dramatize the plight of child laborers. The march proved unsuccessful, but was it a failure? "HECK, NO!" Mother Jones assures readers. But Winter is careful to have Mother Jones state on the penultimate page that "the wheels of justice grind slowly" and that it took 40 more years of work to get laws changed. His protagonist/subject speaks with fervor in a folksy idiom with the occasional dropped G and a great many capital letters. Carpenter depicts Jones as an apple-cheeked, silver-haired white woman in full-length black dress, white lace collar, and an aura of indestructibility. There is racial diversity among both child marchers and onlookers. A stellar introduction to an important and ongoing social issue. (author's note, photographs, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)

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January 6, 2020
A doughty white-haired woman, arms akimbo, nearly steps off the opening page of this book: “My name is Mother Jones,/ and I’m MAD./ And you’d be MAD, too, if you’d/ seen what I’ve seen.” Using Jones’s folksy voice, Winter whirls readers into descriptions of abominable working conditions, where “children YOUR AGE... worked like grown-ups.” To protest, Jones leads a march of child mill workers in 1903 from Pennsylvania to the Long Island summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt. Though the march doesn’t trigger immediate action, over the next 40 years, the cause prevails through legislation. Carpenter’s illustrations adroitly capture both the grim reality of children at work and the irresistible hope of people coming together to demand change. Supplemental materials note that “worldwide, there are 215 million child workers” yet today. Ages 4–8.

February 1, 2020

Gr 1-4-Young readers are introduced to labor union organizer Mary Harris Jones (1837-1930), aka Mother Jones. The narrative begins by revealing that Jones was angry, then lists the issues that angered her: the conditions that coal miners experienced and children working in the mills for long days and little pay. When newspapers would not run her stories, she led the children, all dressed like people from the American Revolution, on a march from Philadelphia to New York City. While the laws were not changed immediately, Jones helped set the framework for the labor laws passed years later that kept children out of factories and in schools during the day. Pre- and post-story author's notes explain the selected quotes and the life of Jones. A bibliography discusses the featured sources. Winter's words will encourage young activists to fight for what is right. Carpenter's illustrations capture both the bleakness of children working in factories and the joy and hope of young people with her use of color and light and dark. VERDICT An inspiring story about the fight against child labor. Recommended for children's nonfiction collections.-Lia Carruthers, Gill St. Bernard's School, Gladstone, NJ

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2019
Grades K-2 *Starred Review* After the death of her husband and children from yellow fever and the loss of her business, Mary Harris, took up the cause of workers and the hardships they faced. This book, as full of spunk and bite as Mary herself, focuses on her children's march, an effort to alert the public to the plight of children, especially in mills, who were forced to work long hours, often in dangerous circumstances. When Mary, now known as Mother Jones, was thwarted by rich newspapermen, who were friends of mill owners, she decided to garner her own publicity by marching with 100 boys and girls, along with some adults to the summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt. Told in Mother Jones' first-person, rabble-rousing voice, this does an excellent job explaining the issues and detailing what happened as the marchers battled heat, exhaustion, and lack of funds. It may surprise young readers that by the end, only a few children were left and there were no immediate concrete results. Winter plays this not as a defeat, but the start of a movement that would eventually result in child labor laws.Younger readers might be a bit disappointed, but Winter's affirmative text, paired with Carpenter's dramatic art featuring an insistent Mother, dramatically demonstrate both the injustice and determination. Notes give more information about Mother Jones and clarify actual quotes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)