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A review by panda_incognito
Samantha Learns a Lesson: A School Story by Susan S. Adler
3.0
This book further develops the story of Nellie. Samantha learns more about her background as a child factory worker, and grows in her compassion and awareness for people outside of her privileged bubble. However, this book is still written in a clunky style. "Probably no one on earth was as smart as Edith Eddleton thought she was" is a good burn, but I'd rephrase it for more impact. Also, parts of the story are oddly paced as the author rushes through to each plot point.
My bigger issue with this book is its lack of historical realism in how people respond to Samantha's speech. Even though this series is well-researched and brings early 1900s America to vivid life, it is simply not possible that a room full of adults would applaud and cheer a speech about how "progress in America" cannot be attained until factories no longer abuse child workers. Samantha changed her originally positive speech at the last minute to reflect her new understanding from Nellie, and in the real world, her teacher and other administrators would have been upset that she presented a different speech at the public event than the one she had won a prize for in school. Also, many adults in the audience would likely have financial investments in factories, and they all benefited from the cheap goods available.
It is unreasonable and unhistorical to expect the adults to respond to Samantha's short, sparsely worded speech with enthusiasm, when it is neither profoundly stirring and eloquent nor something that most of them would like to hear. It's easy to look back into the past and think, "Ah, yes, a speech about child worker's rights will bring down the house," but in a world where this was a major social problem, that simply isn't so. My younger sister and I were discussing this recently related to the scene in the movie, and when she shuddered over how cheesy it was, I pointed out this larger difficulty, saying that it would be as unrealistic as if she got a rousing ovation from a crowd for publicly opposing abortion. People don't like to face up to the brutal, immoral aspects of how children are treated in their societies, and when something is as socially accepted as employing child factory workers in the early 1900s or terminating life in the womb right now, people would simply rather not hear dissenting voices.
This book's ultimate failure isn't in its writing, or its poor pacing, but in the overly rosy view of how adults would respond to a speech that criticizes American progress and provides moral judgment on the social conditions that provided convenience and financial enrichment to people in Samantha's social class. It was brave and right for Samantha to take the stand that she did, and to risk disappointing and angering the powerful adults in her life, but because she does not have to deal with any cost or reckoning for her actions, the book is unrealistic and much less powerful than it could have been.
My bigger issue with this book is its lack of historical realism in how people respond to Samantha's speech. Even though this series is well-researched and brings early 1900s America to vivid life, it is simply not possible that a room full of adults would applaud and cheer a speech about how "progress in America" cannot be attained until factories no longer abuse child workers. Samantha changed her originally positive speech at the last minute to reflect her new understanding from Nellie, and in the real world, her teacher and other administrators would have been upset that she presented a different speech at the public event than the one she had won a prize for in school. Also, many adults in the audience would likely have financial investments in factories, and they all benefited from the cheap goods available.
It is unreasonable and unhistorical to expect the adults to respond to Samantha's short, sparsely worded speech with enthusiasm, when it is neither profoundly stirring and eloquent nor something that most of them would like to hear. It's easy to look back into the past and think, "Ah, yes, a speech about child worker's rights will bring down the house," but in a world where this was a major social problem, that simply isn't so. My younger sister and I were discussing this recently related to the scene in the movie, and when she shuddered over how cheesy it was, I pointed out this larger difficulty, saying that it would be as unrealistic as if she got a rousing ovation from a crowd for publicly opposing abortion. People don't like to face up to the brutal, immoral aspects of how children are treated in their societies, and when something is as socially accepted as employing child factory workers in the early 1900s or terminating life in the womb right now, people would simply rather not hear dissenting voices.
This book's ultimate failure isn't in its writing, or its poor pacing, but in the overly rosy view of how adults would respond to a speech that criticizes American progress and provides moral judgment on the social conditions that provided convenience and financial enrichment to people in Samantha's social class. It was brave and right for Samantha to take the stand that she did, and to risk disappointing and angering the powerful adults in her life, but because she does not have to deal with any cost or reckoning for her actions, the book is unrealistic and much less powerful than it could have been.