Rosie Wilson and her family tell this truly inspirational story based on a miners' strike in Arnot, Pennsylvania from 1898 to 1900. Just when the newly unionized miners begin to think they might starve before the mine Superintendent agrees to their raise, the famous Mother Jones comes to town. Mother Jones not only organizes the men but empowers the women, those wives and daughters who bid "goodbye to their husbands and sons every morning, never knowing if they'll come home mangled or dead" (p.24). With Mother Jones at the helm, Rosie's mother, her father and Rosie herself join in the strike, and, after months of hardship and struggle, are finally victorious.

History comes to life in this moving story of one of the first miners' strikes in America, told through the lives of two ten-year-old girls whose friendship is tested by their fathers' differing views on the strike.