Shaykitteh's World of Books

44 Hours or Strike is a fictional book based on non-fiction events. Centered around the Toronto Dressmakers’ Strike of 1931, the author tells the story of Sophie and her older sister, Rose. After the two sisters go on strike to protect long hours and low pay, Rose is arrested and thrown into prison, leaving her fourteen-year-old sister to take care of their sick mother.

Per the publisher, this book is intended for readers age 10-14, though I feel that it is geared more toward the younger end of that spectrum. Overall, the book is written well for the target age, but in some cases it's too simple and they gloss over unpleasant details, which is why I think the best audience is closer to 10-11. This book does a good job at telling the basic reasons for the strike - low pay and long hours - but neglects to mention how bad the working conditions really were, with injuries a constant threat due to the rushed pace and outdated equipment, the lack of training that most new employees received, and the penalties for not meeting quotas.

The good part of this book is that the main character, Sophie, is essentially likable, but that doesn't make up for the flaws and the fact that certain key aspects of the story feel forced. For example, when Rose is in prison we are led to believe that she is sexually molested by the person in charge, and yet afterward she seems to shake it off and she's back to her normal self in just a few weeks, like it never happened. It just feels unresolved, as if it was just thrown in to illustrate how horrible the conditions were but then the author had second thoughts.

Another issue that I have with this book is bigotry and hypocrisy. Here, the author is trying to show two young girls who are fighting for better lives, and they even mention a speaker toward the end of the book who is fighting against bigotry, and yet Sophie's mother and sister both loudly condemn her for being friends with a non-Jewish boy. This is another part that feels forced, that the author creates a friendship between Sophie and the boy just to have it torn apart at the first chance, and Sophie just kinds shrugs it off.

Was this a book about the struggle that Jewish immigrants had against being accepted, a book about staying true to your Jewish community and refusing to be friends with a non-Jew, a book about horrible hours and pay working in garment factories, or a book about a strike due to those horrible conditions? It's hard to tell because the author introduces all four concepts and yet doesn't fully explore any of them, leaving my feeling disappointed.

I received a free, advance copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.