At age eleven, Rosie Lepidus's main concerns are winning ring-a-levio, going to school, and staying out of trouble. But when Mama falls ill with pneumonia and Papa throws all the family's savings into the nickelodeon business, the burden of caring for her family falls on Rosie's shoulders. Tall for her age, Rosie is able to pass for sixteen and take Mama's place sewing sleeves at a shirtwaist factory. Her family needs the money. But working conditions are horrible and the factory boss is incredibly strict. The girls are fined for nearly everything -- even talking or humming! Within days of starting work, Rosie hears the buzz about a huge strike of twenty thousand shirtwaist workers. It's the strike that Mama's been working toward for ages: a huge push for change in the workplace. Rosie wants to join in, but as the streets become more dangerous, Papa asks his daughter to return to school. And Rosie must choose: follow Papa's orders...or fight with everything she's got. Grade 3-6-In this first book in a trilogy, Rosie's father invests in the nickelodeon business and her mother becomes ill, so the 11-year-old fills in at a shirtwaist factory in order to support the family. She quickly-perhaps too quickly-makes the transition from carefree schoolgirl to oppressed factory worker, and participates in the 1909-1910 strike. In the end, Papa moves the family to Chicago, and Rosie, while sad to leave her friends, looks forward to new adventures. The story is told from the child's perspective, and Matas provides good background on the working conditions and hardships faced by the strikers, including the girl's arrest and appearance in court. Weaknesses in the novel include a clairvoyant neighbor who does not help to move the story along and asides about religion; some Yiddish words are not defined. Still, readers will enjoy this appealing, spirited protagonist, and will be watching for the second installment to see how she adjusts to her new life. Sharon R. Pearce, Chippewa Elementary School, Bensenville, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. Gr. 4-6. Matas opens a projected trilogy that sends a young immigrant and her family on a journey from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, exploring what life was like in those places during the early twentieth century. In this episode, Rosie secretly leaves her Lower East Side world of school and games to take her ill mother's place at the shirtwaist factory. After a brief, but horrifying, taste of the working conditions there, she joins strikers--only to be assaulted, arrested, and thrown into jail. Her parents discover that she has dropped out of school, which sparks a discussion about making choices; the strike succeeds; Mama's enforced rest allows her to recover; and Papa's new movie houses pay off so well that the family is able to open a chain of nickelodeons in Chicago. The plot struggles beneath its informational agenda and lacks the documentation of Kathryn Lasky's similarly set Dreams in the Golden Country (1998), but the story will leave readers outraged by the exploitation of women and children in the workplace and looking ahead to Rosie's further experiences. John Peters Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Carol Matas is a writer of historical novels and other fiction for young readers, incorporating Holocaust and Jewish themes. She is known for her hard-hitting stories, that thrust adolescent protagonists into life and death situations, while confronting readers with the vagaries and complexities of life.