Ten-year-old Rebecca Putney has to stand on a box to reach the company ledger and sign her name after working all week with other girls and women in a New England textile mill in the 1830s. Rebecca is less naive than she might appear because innocence disappeared quickly in a workplace replete with injustices, injuries, and 12-hour work days. Loosely basing the story on the well-documented childhood experiences of Harriet Hanson Robinson, McCully focuses on the Lowell mill workers' first strike in Lowell, Massachusetts. Watercolors and pastels illustrate each page of a picture book story replete with written and visual historical details. A page of historical information concludes the book. (Ages 8-11)

Rebecca Putney is a bobbin girl who helps support her struggling family by working all day in a hot, noisy cotton mill. Working conditions at the mill are poor, and there is talk of lowering the workers' wages. Rebecca's friend Judith wants to protest the pay cut--but troublemakers at the mill are dismissed. Does Rebecca have the courage to join the protest? Full color.