Books like Lyddie

Summary: Impoverished Vermont, farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s. Oh, my heart ached for Lyddie and the circumstances that made her life. But I know, Lyddie will achieve all that she had planned/intend to do in the last part of the book. :-; The story gripped me from the start. Despite the obvious physical tension (i.e. bear), the author managed to incorporate humour in this, and at the same time release another conflict/tension (i.e. mother’s illness). I kept on reading because I want to find out what happens to Lyddie, her family. I longed for them to be whole and live on the farm again. Somehow this also mirrors what I would want in my life or if I was in Lyddie’s shoes. And Lyddie was working so hard, how could she not get a happy ending, ey? But alas, the farm’s gone, her other sister is dead, her mother in an asylum and died eventually, her brother has found an adoptive, loving family, her new friends returning to their previous homes, the factory life taking its toll on her body. And suddenly, I felt how Lyddie felt. Empty. Lonely. Alone. What was there to look forward to? To work for? She got no one now. No family. Our plans and dreams do not always turn out the way we want. When you are young and new to the world, you get all these ideas that surely everything will occur according to plan. Realizing this, I am suddenly feeling afraid. But Lyddie wasn’t afraid. Or if she was, she did not linger on this. She taught herself to find another reason to live for, to dream on about. Oh! I am not gonna be a slave! I am not a slave.Read Last January 27, 2011