Children's Books
Books about growing up in the coal region.
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A Diamond in the Dust
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Carla Joinson / Hardcover / April 2001
- Ages 12 and up. Joinson evokes the hardships of life in a
turn-of-the-century southern Illinois mining town in this affecting novel.
Her 16-year-old heroine, Katy Sollis, knows there must be something better than
the grit and terrible dangers of the mines, and she's determined to find it.
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A Coal Miner's Bride: The Diary of Anetka Kaminska, Lattimer, Pennsylvania, 1896
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Suan Campbell Bartoletti / Hardcover / Published 2000
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Ages 9 to 12. In 1896 Anetka Kaminska, 13, must leave her Polish village
for an arranged marriage with a coal miner in Lattimer, Pennsylvania.
Her husband, who was married once before, doesn't love her, and when he's
killed in a mining accident a few months after the wedding,
she's left to care for his three small daughters and take
in boarders to survive.
The appalling working conditions in the mines are an integral part of
the story and so is the labor struggle for change.
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Growing Up in Coal Country
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Susan Campbell Bartoletti / Hardcover / Published 1996
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Ages 9 and up. Based on personal interviews, newspaper accounts, mining inspection records, and other
original sources, a pictorial portrait of life in the Pennsylvania coal mines and ""patch villages"" tells
the heartbreaking but life-affirming story of children and adults for whom this region
represented a way of life.
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Together
in Pinecone Patch ~
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Thomas F. Yezerski / Hardcover / Published 1998
Keara Buckley's family loves Ireland just as much as Stefan Pazik's
family loves Poland, but when terrible hardships force them to leave their
respective countries in search of a better life, they wind up in the same
place--the dreary coal-mining town of Pinecone Patch, Pennsylvania. The
Irish and Polish communities in the small town have a mutual disdain for
each other, but when Keara and Stefan fall in love, everyone must learn
to live together. Full color
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Breaker
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N. A. Perez / Hardcover / Published 1988
After his father's death, fourteen-year-old Pat is forced to go to
work in the coal mines that dominate his Pennsylvania town and becomes
involved in the big mine workers' strike of 1902.
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Danger
at the Breaker ~
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Catherine A. Welch, Andrea Shine (Illustrator) / Paperback / Published
1992
A story about an eight-year-old boy's miserable and dangerous first
day working at a coal mine in the 1800s. Andrew is heartbroken about leaving
school, and then an explosion nearly kills his coal-miner father. Though
the text offers a detailed view of a historical place and time, the story
is dark and depressing.
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Emmy
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Connie Jordan Green / School & Library Binding / Published 1992
Emmy, the eleven-year-old heroine of this gritty novel, faces tremendous
hardship after her father loses his arm -- and his spirit -- in a mining
accident. Green skillfully creates a convincing picture of the horrors
of a system that allowed a disabled miner to be evicted from a company
shack, but she also details the small pleasures of childhood in the mountains.
A powerful and gripping story.
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In
Coal Country (Dragonfly Books) ~
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Judith Hendershot, Thomas B. Allen (Illustrator) / Paperback / Published
1992
This stunning picture book about life in an Ohio coal-mining town during
the 1930s "offers such an authentic picture of growing up gritty that you
almost expect it to rub off on your hands."--School Library Journal. ALA
Notable Children's Book; Booklist Editors' Choice; New York Times Best
Illustrated Book of the Year; Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field
of Social Studies; Parents' Choice Remarkable Book for Illustration. Full-color
illustrations.
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