As long as Nan Sparrow can remember, Sweep has taken care of her. They sleep on rooftops snuggled against warm chimneys. When there is nothing to eat, Sweep spins story soup (with small pieces of trash collected during the day) to keep Nan from thinking about her hungry stomach. Sweep disappears one night when Nan is six. To stay alive, Nan must climb for a harsh taskmaster named Wilkie Crudd, Esq. Despite the extreme hardships, Nan has Sweep’s hat and a bit of char hidden in the hat’s crown. The char gives off a comforting warmth that keeps Nan warm on the cold nights in Crudd’s coal bin. One day, Nan gets tightly stuck in a flue bend. Roger, Crudd’s head climber, seeks revenge on Nan by setting a fire in the fireplace. She is certain that she will die in the chimney, but she wakes up in an empty attic. How did she escape the chimney? When she reaches for the char lying next to her, it moves. Then, she notices that char has two little eyes and a mouth. Somehow, char broke through the chimney stack and rescued Nan. What follows is a miraculous journey. The char grows into Charlie, a golem-like creature, who can walk and talk. Wilkie Crudd and his crew think Nan died in the chimney so she works hard to keep herself hidden while she finds jobs to keep herself alive. Nan and Charlie live in an abandoned mansion. Nan’s luck runs out when Crudd finds her, but Charlie saves her life.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com ( )

I almost had to stop reading this because it was making me so uncomfortable. To think of a small child climbing inside a narrow chimney, a bag over their head to keep dust out of their eyes, squeezing up through layers of coal soot. I'm shuddering even now.

Good thing I powered through some awfully tough scenes because in the end this is a beautiful book. I'm partial to British historical fiction already, but it wasn't just that. It's a magical story with very real historical detail. And, as the author points out in an afterword, "Poverty, child labor, and anti-Semitism continue to this day, no matter how much we would prefer to ignore them." I loved discovering how much of the book was real. The fantastical parts served to enhance the story for sure, but the parts based in reality were my favorite.

Since Mary Poppins Returns is in theaters now, I think that might be how I'd start to book talk this. On the rooftops of London, chim chiree chim chiroo... we may think of a chimney sweep as Bert from Mary Poppins, but did you know it was really little kids who used to clean chimneys? Thank goodness for child labor laws, may they spread to every country on Earth.

Edited to add:

A comment on SLJ's Heavy Medal blog has really made me stop and think about how Jewish culture is handled in this book (the comment is by Sarah H. and can be found here: http://blogs.slj.com/heavymedal/2019/01/23/heavy-medal-finalist-sweep-by-jonatha....

We all have blind spots as readers, and I must admit that I was not paying particular attention to the way the author incorporated Judaism into the story (even in the way I phrased that you can tell I was reading through a Christian lens). Golems come from Jewish culture. I think most readers (if they think about it) will infer the Sweep who made the golem was Jewish. So this raises the question: If Nan was raised by a Jewish parent, why doesn’t she consider herself Jewish? Why didn’t the Sweep share that part of his identity with her? This is hard for me to wrap my mind around. I wonder how an #OwnVoices (in this case Jewish) author might have written it differently. Any time an author "borrows" an aspect of a culture outside their own experience, we should look critically at whether it was done with authenticity and respect. ( )

The real world offered no miracles.
No “once upon a time. No “happily ever after.
And yet, here in this dusty crawl space, she held a miracle in her hands. A miracle with eyes and a heartbeat and a crumbly gray body.

This is an amazing middle grade book.
It doesn’t shy away from grim realities of victorian London and the many different ways children had to survive. I loved the way Nan’s own history with The Sweep and her friendships with Toby and Charlie mirrored each other.
I also liked how the scope of things became bigger. Saving one child is great, but there will be a dozen others just like them. Children look up to adults the way birds take to Golems, and one day those children will be adults themselves and someone will look up to them. ( )

We are saved by saving others.

A wonderful blend of history, heartbreak, magic and mysticism in Victorian England. It's about a young girl, Nan Sparrow, who is a chimney sweep, indentured to a cruel master, and barely surviving. When she is almost killed while cleaning chimneys in a prestigious girls school, she is saved by a piece of char from her old master. From this warm char, Nan grows a golem, named Charlie. They are hiding from the cruel master, but eventually take a stand for all the sweeps of London, endangering themselves to save others (a recurring theme.) Nan and Charlie are truly unforgettable characters, and the supporting characters, such as Toby, Newt, and the omnipresence of the old master are excellent too. The postscripts by Auxier about child labor reforms and how he combined ideas to form the book are quite interesting. ( )

Sweep
The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
By: Jonathan Auxier

This is a story about a little girl as a chimney sweep. She was with a man who raised her and loved her all her life. Then when she was 6 years old, he just left. She has friends, and enemies. She ended up being a indentured slave practically to a cruel man, along with many others about her age.

The story picks up at age 11 when something happens to cause the special stone the sweep man left for her, along with his hat, that changes her life. It becomes alive. It grows.

It's a very heartwarming story and heartbreaking story. I have to say I shed A few tears in here a couple of times. ( )