Guttersnipe

Ten-year-old Ben lives with his widowed mother and older sister and brother in the poorest part of a large Canadian town, along with other Jewish immigrants. And though Mama works long hours at a factory and Ben's sister and brother have quit school to work full-time, "there's never a penny left over." Ben, "full of hope" and "determined not to live in poverty forever," decides he, too, must get a job. He's entrusted with the use of a bicycle to deliver hat linings to a factory across town. But when he tries to hitch a ride up a hill by grabbing onto the brass pole of a passing trolley, he takes a hard fall and the hat linings scatter everywhere. Even worse, the conductor calls him a guttersnipe, an ugly epithet often hurled at children of the slums. Ben is devastated. And then, almost miraculously, he realizes he is "just a boy, just starting out" with "many things left to learn and experience." The accident is not an end to his hopes and dreams, it is a beginning. Emily Arnold McCully's charming ink-and-watercolor illustrations provide many details of the clothing, hair styles, shops, and street scenes of the early twentieth century. Ages 5-9. Susan Cantor

Jane Cutler's newest book for children deftly blends tough-minded realism with fairy tale magic. In the early years of the twentieth century, young Ben, the son of Jewish immigrants to Canada, had to help support the family following his father's death. His brother and sister had already quit school and gone to work. The story takes us through the first few fateful hours of Ben's first day on the job. What happens there is both sad and bracing, as Ben looks in on his siblings at work, both because he's curious and wants to show off. But his own working day ends very soon. The text of "Guttersnipe" is spare but stirring, while the illustrations, though pleasant, strike me as a bit too cheerful: the ugly, crowded conditions that Cutler implies are not to be seen in the pictures. Cutler's bittersweet depiction of plucky children, yearning but hopeful, overcoming difficulties, is reminiscent of the best of her other fiction for children, "My Wartime Summers," "Family Dinner," "Rats," and the much more ambitious "Song of the Molimo." In the latter, the hardships are emotional, and their conquest involves a comnplexity that could challenge young adult readers.

Ten-year-old Ben, the youngest child in a Jewish immigrant family in Canada, desperately wanted to contribute to the family's income. Money was always tight after his father died, and everyone worked hard to try to make ends meet: his mother sewed clothes in a factory, his sister not only apprenticed with a milliner but also sold tickets at a movie theater, and his brother had to give up school to work full-time at a bowling alley. When Ben heard that the hat maker had a part-time job opening, he jumped at the chance. The work involved riding an old bicycle with a large woven basket filled with hat linings to the other side of town. Was Ben physically able and mature enough to handle this responsibility? Guttersnipe, based on actual events in the life of the author's father, expertly weaves together an engrossing story with important lessons about poverty, discrimination, and jobs. The book's title, which is a derogatory term for young outcasts who spend most their time on the streets, goes a long way in suggesting some of the challenges that Ben faces in situating himself in the workplace. This thoughtful book can generate some interesting discussions with children about working to overcome economic and social obstacles.