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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
A child is killed by a train in a harrowing scene; poverty and hardship depicted throughout
Language
Barely any
Working-class Kentucky and Detroit vernacular; mild period language
Sexual Content
None
None
Substance Use
None
Minimal; brief social drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Profound grief and psychological trauma; loss of cultural identity; artistic spirit crushed by industrial life
What this book is about
Gertie Nevels has a gift: she can see figures waiting inside blocks of wood and set them free with her knife. When her family moves to Detroit for war work, the factory world threatens to consume everything she is. Arnow's 1954 masterpiece is a devastating portrait of displacement, grief, and the cost of industrial America on the human soul.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Traumatic child death
Themes of grief and identity dissolution
Reader Verification
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