George Ella Lyon (All the Water in the World) and Christopher Cardinale (Mister Mendoza's Paintbrush) make a perfect match for this picture-book homage to a 1931 rallying cry.
Cardinale opens with a breathtaking view of the eastern Kentucky mountains before plumbing the depths of the coal mines below. "My Pa is a miner," the girl narrator begins. "Earns our dinner deep in the mountain blasting and loading coal." Pa sits at the head of a table of nine that passes plates of food. No one goes hungry. Yet the narrator and her siblings "live in a coal company house on coal company land," and Pa gets paid in scrip, which has value only at the company store.
Lyon and Cardinale contextualize the terms so that a young audience can understand ideas such as "scrip," "strike" and "scab," as the coal miners take a stand. They also do not shy away from the violence unleashed on the narrator's family. Pa is Sam Reese, a union organizer, and the company men would like to put an end to his organizing. As the sheriff and his gang shoot through the walls, the children hide under the bed, and Ma--Florence Reese--using a page from the calendar, composes the lyrics to the song, "Which Side Are You On?" Lyon maintains a child's point of view. As Ma sings her song, her children ask the questions that readers will have in mind, such as "Why don't the sheriff stop them?"
Although this book describes a historical event, it can open a gateway to understanding terms such as "collective bargaining," what that right has meant, and to consider what it means today. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness