Audacity

by Melanie Crowder

Genres: Young Adult; YA Historical Fiction

Synopsis

A 2015 National Jewish Book Award finalist

The inspiring story of Clara Lemlich, whose fight for equal rights led to the largest strike by women in American history

A gorgeously told novel in verse written with intimacy and power, Audacity is inspired by the real-life story of Clara Lemlich, a spirited young woman who emigrated from Russia to New York at the turn of the twentieth century and fought tenaciously for equal rights. Bucking the norms of both her traditional Jewish family and societal conventions, Clara refuses to accept substandard working conditions in the factories on Manhattan's Lower East Side. For years, Clara devotes herself to the labor fight, speaking up for those who suffer in silence. In time, Clara convinces the women in the factories to strike, organize, and unionize, culminating in the famous Uprising of the 20,000.

 

Powerful, breathtaking, and inspiring, Audacity is the story of a remarkable young woman, whose passion and selfless devotion to her cause changed the world.

 

Release date: January 8, 2015

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 400

Sample

clouds
 
                                    Over the grey plain of the sea
                                    winds are gathering the storm-clouds
 
Words
float like wayward clouds
in the air
in my mind.
 
 
                                    Now his wing the wave
 
Wait—
or was it,
           
                                    Now the wave his wing caresses
 
 
I dip a hand
into my apron pocket
unfold a square of paper
against my palm,
hunch my shoulder,
hide it from view.
 
Ah,
 
yes.
 
                                    Now his wing the wave caresses,
                                    now he rises like an arrow
                                    cleaving clouds
                                    and
 
The poem is ripped
from my hand
and the air,
where only wayward clouds
had been,
is full of shouting,
accusations
a hand raised in anger
            ready to strike—
 
the world slows
in the second before
pain blooms
in my jaw;
       a second
to hope
the poem is
safe
in my mind
where fists
    and fury
cannot shake it free.


ordinary
 
Just because I am
small boned
and short,
brown haired
and brown eyed,
just because I look
           
common
as a wren
meek
as a robin
 
that does not mean
what is inside me is also
           
common
as a wren
meek
as a robin.
 
Everything
I wish for
is strange
aberrant
even wrong in this place
but I know
I cannot be the only one
blanketing her bright feathers
hooding her sharp eyes
hiding
in plain sight.
 
My life
            so far
has been ordinary
simple
small
 
but I cannot shake the feeling
that inside this little body
something stronger
is nesting
waiting
for a chance
to flex her talons
snap her wings
      taut
and glide
far away
from here.