5.4.2 Counting on Grace 4-Pack

This book is the on-level title in the 5.4 Book Club Teacher's Guide, and is a historical fiction novel. Students will continue to think about the topic of child labor.

Blurb: 1910 North Pownal, Vermont. Twelve-year-old Grace and her best friend, Arthur, must leave school to work as doffers in the mill. But Grace is left-handed. Replacing full bobbins with empty ones is a right-handed job, and every mistake Grace makes costs her family precious pennies.

Grace knows that Arthur is hatching a desperate plan to get himself out of the mill. She begs him to wait. Something will come along to change their lives.

That something turns out to be Lewis Hine, a reformer with a camera, who finds his way into the mill so that he can take pictures of kids like Grace and Arthur next to the enormous spinning frames that beat out the rhythm of their twelve-hour days. Boldly, Grace becomes Hine’s secret ally.

Lexile Level: 760

Page Count: 240