Gr 5-9 --In this superb novel, Paterson deftly depicts a Lowell, Massachusetts fabric mill in the 1840s and a factory girl whose life is changed by her experiences there. Readers first meet 13-year-old Lyddie Worthen staring down a bear on her family' debt-ridden farm in the Vermont mountains. With her fierce spirit, she stares down a series of metaphorical bears in her year as a servant girl at an inn and then in her months under grueling conditions...

"In modern parlance, "Luddite" has come to mean one who rejects modern ways for a simpler time. While the term is bandied about frequently in our technology-saturated age, the historical events in which the expression finds its origin have largely been forgotten." "The Luddite riots, which proved to be one of the defining moments of the Industrial Revolution, began in 1799 when Ned Ludd, a "backward youth," is said to have smashed a knitting frame....