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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Hopkinson, Deborah. |
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In
March of 1887,
11-year-old
Rocco Zaccaro
arrives alone
to New York
City from
Cavello,
Italy. His
family, poor
and in need of
money, sign a
contract with
an
unscrupulous
padrone in the
hopes that
Rocco will be
able to work
in America and
send cash home
to his family.
Unfortunately,
the padrone
has less
savory plans
in store for
Rocco and
other
immigrant boys
like him and
he finds
himself forced
into a life of
child labor.
Not willing to
settle with
the hand he is
dealt, Rocco
meets the boys
of the
infamous
Bandits'
Roost, who
teach him the
art of
pickpocketing.
Rocco embraces
his new life
of crime, but
when he meets
Meddlin' Mary,
a
strong-hearted
Irish girl
who's
determined to
help the
horses of New
York City,
things begin
to change.
Rocco begins
to reexamine
his life—and
take his
future into
his own hands.
(Vermont
Dorothy
Canfield
Fisher Book
Award,
2018) |
| SUBJECTS: Animals -- Treatment -- Fiction. Child abuse -- Fiction. Child labor -- Fiction. Conduct of life -- Fiction. Immigrants -- Fiction. Italians -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction. New York (N.Y.) -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction. |
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