Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/01/2019 *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. - Copyright 2019 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2020 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 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.