Enjoyable and inspiring story of the mill workers' strike in Lawrence, MA, from the point of view of two young teens caught up in it. I felt like there was some ethnic stereotyping, especially of the excitable, spaghetti-loving Italians. Otherwise, though, I was interested in the portrayal of how different ethnic groups put aside their differences to work together and organize for this cause.

This is a pretty good book. I just got done teaching it to my 6th grade class. We chose this book because it can appeal both to boys and girls. Has a lot of themse in it that my kids would discuss. It suprised me how many of my kids loved it. I didn't expect that to happen.

This book took a unique perspective (actually two perspectives) on a historical event that took place in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. It was interesting to read it from two different perspectives, because the story fit together better that way, and made it more interesting.

When I read this I didn't know it was based on the true story of 1912 Mill workers and families who went on strike. Folks sent their children away by train to live with people who took them in in nearby states until the strike was over.

I chose this book bc I love the author Katherine Paterson. Def good read.

About the 1912 Mill strike in Lawrence. Bread and Roses strike. The story follows Rosa and Jake. This gives two different perspectives on the story which I thought was wonderful. The story really made you feel for the characters and the people who had to work in such hard conditions. I think it would be a great why to learn about history. It gives you a connection to the event that you can not find by just reading a history book.

In this magnificent novel, Katherine Paterson immerses you into the life of a god- loving, caring, school girl, Rosa Serutti who often fears for her mother and sister during the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike. Paterson also follows the life of Jake Beale,a native-born, willing to do anything to survive ,who joins the strike in hopes of escaping his drunken fathers beatings. It's incredibly interesting to watch their path's cross in a time of distress and the story of Jake and Rosa unfold.

I really liked this book. I thought that both Jake and Rosa were well developed characters, but they could have been developed more. I liked that the end was open ended so that you can think that everyone had a happy ending. I really liked how much we went over the book in class because I fell that I got a better grasp on what the book was really trying to depict. I thought that the end of the chapters foreshadowed the next chapter very nicely. Katherine Paterson wrote this book very well but I did think there were some things from my point of view that she could have done differently. For example she could have not spent as much time as she did in Mass. following Rosa and Jakes stories and sent them to the Gerbatis sooner and carried on with their story there. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed "Bread and Roses, Too" and I wish that there was a movie based on the book and a sequel "Bread and Roses, Too 2" for real.

This was a very good YA historical novel. It tells about the Lawrence Strike of 1912. Factories cut the work week back two hours, depriving already hungry and cold families of a couple of badly needed loaves of bread.

We see both sides of the fence so to speak. Rosa is against the strike even tho her mother and sister are a part of it. Her teacher is partly to blame for Rosa's doubts. Also, Rosa is worried that her mother will get hurt or worse, murdered because the strike does get out hand a few times and at least two young people end up dead. But is it the fault of the strikers or the mill owners and their armies?

Jake is the other side. He is for the strike. It makes him feel like a man which a big thing for a kid that sleeps in trash piles to stay warm. He occasionally has his doubts tho too.. especially when he is starving without shelter.

Both Jake and Rosa go to Vermont to wait the strike out. Rosa is worried that the strike will never end. Jake has nothing to go back to except a secret he doesn't want revealed.

I enjoyed it well enough tho I had a hard time with Jake. He is unlikeable at times as he steels from the poor box, hides in churches, and burries himself in trash. Tho it was a good read and I learned a lot about the 1912 strike that I didn't know before, it fails to hit the five star mark cause it never MOVED me. I never laughed, cried, chuckled, or gasped.

Jake at 13, use to work in the mills but now there is a strike going on. His father who doesn't work, takes Jake's money to buy booze and beats Jake. Jake is fed up with the beatings and lives where he can. Most of the time, on the streets but also at the shoe girl's house and sometimes in one of the two local Catholic churches where he takes coins from the money box. He's tried more than once to go back to work but gets stopped by the strikers.

Rosa lives with her mother, sister, brother and boarders. Her mother and sister work for the mills but are on strike and attend meetings as though it was their entire life. They picket along with the other strikers but it is against the law to strike and a few young people get shot. The strikers are blamed for that. Some of the picketers end up in jail while the masses are threatened.

Rosa is scared for the lives of her mother and sister. Because this strike takes place in Lawrence, MA, it is local history for my husband who grew up around there. He is familiar with the streets and other locations spoken of in this book.

Bread and Roses, Too is about a girl named Rosa and a boy Jake, two different people who met once in an alley where Jake slept. They live in a place where many people are going on strike because of the little pay they recieve at the Mills.

Rosa is a good school girl without a father, who knows better, but is caught up in the strikes. Her mother and sister go along with the crowds of people striking. Jake, a boy who lives on the street, works at the mills, and gets beaten by his alcoholic father, goes along with the strike also.

The author really knows how to make a book very interesting to the reader, and makes you want to keep reading to learn more about the way life was for the people in those days and condisions, and also she keeps you wanting to read to know what will happen next!

Also, she made it so that it went back and forth telling what's going on with the boy, and with the girl at times you would never guess, most likely to make the book more interesting and tell it from different points of view.

I would highly suggest this book to anybody who likes works of literature about the hardships of people's lives and how those people deal with things that happen in their lives!

-Savannah Channell

September 11, 2007

Since lately I can't seem to decide upon my feelings or opinions whatsoever [it's a teenage thing I guess], I can't say for sure whether or not I really enjoyed this book. However, I can say that it didn't bore me quite as much as I thought it would, being historical fiction. Of course, it still dragged on with historical information at some points, but knowing some of the history [also through class review] helped me understand and enjoy the story a bit more.

My favorite part of the book was when it began to take a different direction and focus more on the main characters (both very dynamic), Jake and Rosa, than the mill workers and the strike in Lawrence. I think I found this more interesting because I could relate to it a bit more, being around their age. I liked being able to compare how they went about their days with how I go about mine.

Now, the all-important ending:
I'm hard to satisfy when it comes to endings. Sometimes cliffhangers are okay, but usually they drive me [or anyone] nuts. Especially when there's no sequel planned to come out. However, it's hard to end a story without using some cheesy, overplayed, saw-that-coming-since-halfway-through-the-book deal. I think "Bread and Roses, Too" had a nice balance of the two. Some people predicted the ending long before it came, and I had an idea of what would happen, but it was pretty ambiguous right up until the very end. Most loose ends were tied up, but we were still left with some questions regarding what will happen to Rosa when she returns home.

Overall, this is one of the better books I've read in my middle school experiences.

Carefully crafted tale about two children caught up in the Lawrence, MA mill workers' strike of 1912, based on fact. The girl is Rosa, from a struggling Italian immigrant family. The other is Jake, a native-born who has learned to steal and lie to survive. The children are sent to Barre, VT to stay with sympathetic families during the turbulent strike, where each one learns a life lesson about themselves.

I loved the two characters and how they represented two victims of the workers' strike. We could see the life of the immigrant family through Rosa, and the life of the native-born "street rat" through Jake. Each character has his or her own issues, and the story is blunt and not sentimental. Boys and girls will be able to relate to these characters, and learn about the hard living conditions of children during this time.

Highly recommend to grades 5 and 6 -- also deep enough for grade 7.