Well. I'll admit that if this work of young adult historical fiction hadn't been a novel-in-verse (or a book similar in length to this), I might not have been able to read it. It likely would have been too heavy for me to get all the way through. Part of the beauty of novels-in-verse is that even when they're raw, tackling such difficult subjects, they can cover a lot but with an economy of just the right words.

And there certainly is much beauty in the telling of this painful, angering story. Angering for me because I find it such a shame how long and how hard people must too often struggle and protest just to be treated fairly. To be treated as human beings.

No, Clara's journey isn't at all an easy one. But her determination in the midst of opposition and seemingly insurmountable odds kept me reading. Reinforcing to me that even when the struggle for human rights is hard, humanity is worth it. ( )

Inspired by historical figure Clara Lemlich, Audacity is an account of hardship in the patriarchal, exploitive, and violent early twentieth-century garment industry. The book’s power rests in its beautiful verses of undeterred social activism. Historical Note, Interview, Glossary, Selected Sources

2018- I would love to read this book again and again! It is written in verse which is different from what I'm used to, but the ideas are very clear. I empathized with Clara's plight and was inspired to join her in her fight even though I don't have the courage that she had. The book also included interviews with Clara's living grandchildren which I enjoyed and these emphasized that Clara's fight for human rights is not over.

2020- I loved this book again a second time. I love that it is written in verse but also has a plot that is powerful and still important today. ( )

This book won the inaugural Arnold Adoff Poetry Award (the "Rudini") for New Voices in 2016, and it was well-deserved. Set in 1903-1909, it is based on the life story of Clara Lemlich, a Russian Jewish immigrant to New York City who ended up organizing the female shirtwaist factory workers of the city to strike together, in the "Uprising of 20,000" to demand fair labor practices. The book fictionalizes her story, but all of the major events and people are there, and it eloquently expresses her strength and determination. The story goes from her shtetl life in Russia where she taught herself to read Russian in secret (her strict father believed only boys and men should read, and certainly not the oppressors' language, only Hebrew), to her difficult life in the tenements of New York, learning English, working long hours in horrible conditions with very little pay and nasty bosses. She has a dream to become a doctor, but that dream is put on hold as she tries to support her family--she and her mother worked to support her brothers and father, who only studied and worshipped-- and then to improve the lives of all of her fellow factory girls, including those at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The poems are in free verse, emotional, spare, and beautiful. The afterword is illuminating, giving more historical facts, photos of Clara, and includes an interview with Clara's daughter, daughter-in-law and her four grandchildren. I was so impressed to learn of Clara's later life: she kept right on organizing and helping others, marching during the Great Depression, protesting fascism and the Korean War, and even helping her nursing home orderlies to organize! Wonderful book, and a good one to pair with Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This book does not deal with the Triangle Factory fire, but is very connected to that incident and those young women. ( )

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