Everything's in ashes

Ashes of Roses ~ by Mary Jane Auch, 2002, YA historical fiction, 256 pages

The story of a young girl's newfound independence, from her entrance into a new country to her frightening involvement in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.  Here's a quote from page 9:

       My heart filled with fear and hope at the same time. I had the feeling that I was brought to America for a purpose. Something important would happen to me here.

       I remembered the words of the poem, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..."  Well, we were poor, all right, and after two weeks crammed into the bottom of a boat with Joseph screamin' his fool head off, we certainly qualified as tired, huddled masses.

       "Here we are, America," I whispered. "We're just exactly what you ordered."

When she arrives on Ellis Island as a seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, Rose Nolan is looking for a land of opportunities.  After part of her family is sent back to Ireland, unable to set foot on American soil, she is left to fend for herself and her younger sister.  She finds work at New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died.  Stubborn and tenacious, she refuses to give up even though she is left alone to fend for herself and her younger sister.  Rose is thrust into a hard-knock life of tenements and factory work.

When the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 upends Rose's life, her confusions are brought to an all-too-painful head.  To whom and to what can she turn when everything around her is in ashes?

This book qualifies for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

A book and a challenge

The Photographer's Son: Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor ~ by Maya C. Klinger, 2022, historical fiction, 119 pages

This World War Two historical novel won the "Yad Vashem" World Holocaust Remembrance Center award for educational enterprises.  It's a book for young readers about a family of photographers during the Holocaust, told from the perspective of the five-year-old son.  World War II is raging in 1941, and the Nazi regime is spreading fear in the hearts of Jews throughout Europe.  Moshe Mandil, a Jewish photographer, quickly realizes that the life of his family will never be the same again, but he refuses to accept this new reality.

Together with his wife and their two little children, Moshe makes plans to board a train with counterfeit documents in hand and regain their freedom.  But his plan goes terribly wrong, and before the train can leave the station, a German officer pulls the family off the carriage, accusing them of the worst crime – being Jews.  Will Moshe be able to save his family?  Told from the perspective of the five-year-old son, this book for younger readers shows how the Mandil family were saved by Albanian Muslims.

Marg of the Intrepid Reader is hosting the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.  We are to choose one of these reading levels:

• 20th Century Reader — 2 books
• Victorian Reader — 5 books
• Renaissance Reader — 10 books
• Medieval — 15 books
• Ancient History — 25 books
• Prehistoric — 50+ books

I'll go easy on myself this year, choosing to read only two books, starting with the one above.  Maybe I'll surprise myself and end up reading more.

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