Sophie and Rose’s par­ents moved them from Rus­sia to Toron­to in the 1920s to make a bet­ter life for their fam­i­ly and avoid the ter­ri­ble anti-Semi­tism of the time. In 1931, when Sophie is 14 and Rose is 16, their father has died, their moth­er is sick and home­bound and they are both work­ing in a sweat­shop. The girls join the new­ly spread­ing Inter­na­tion­al Ladies’ Gar­ment Work­ers Union in Toron­to along with the oth­er work­ers in their fac­to­ry, and go on strike. Dublin tells of the awful work­ing con­di­tions and ter­ri­ble pover­ty, includ­ing lack of med­ical care and prop­er cloth­ing that this fam­i­ly and oth­ers encounter dur­ing this time. To make mat­ters worse, Rose is impris­oned and used as an exam­ple to the oth­er work­ers by being placed in a high secu­ri­ty prison.

While all this is unfold­ing, Sophie makes a friend. He is enam­ored of her, and she finds him quite intrigu­ing how­ev­er he is not Jew­ish. They keep their bud­ding romance a secret as long as they can – until Rose dis­cov­ers it after her release from prison. His­tor­i­cal events and char­ac­ters are woven in among the fic­tion­al char­ac­ters pro­vid­ing a con­text for the events that unfold. The sto­ry is fraught with dif­fi­cult deci­sions that no young per­son should have to make, but it pro­vides inter­est­ing his­tor­i­cal insights for the youth of today.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 11 – 15.