Audacity

Audacity by Melanie Crowder, 389 pages

Clara is a young Jewish girl whose family has escaped the Russian pogroms in the early 1900s and come to America.  In Russia, Clara was interested in learning but her family felt that education for a girl would be a waste of time.  Clara’s role was to learn to be obedient and to find a good husband.  Clara hopes that in America things will be different.  She wants to become a doctor.  She realizes quickly that nothing will change how her family feels but that she may be able to make her own decisions.  Forced to work in a factory sweatshop, Clara still finds time to attend classes but also realizes that she is interested in the unions that some of her coworkers are trying to organize to create better working conditions.  Despite her family’s objections, Clara becomes instrumental in the organization effort.  Told in a series of poems, this book is loosely based on the real life of Clara Lemlich, a young Jewish woman originally from Russia, who fought valiantly for the worker’s rights and the establishment of the unions.  Although books in verse are still not really my thing, this was a good story and a lot of teens will like the fact that, because of the format, it is a quick read.