Living on Sisu

Winner: First Place for Historical Fiction, Purple Dragonfly Awards for excelence in children's literature. Award given Nov. 6, 2010, by Five Star Publications in conjunction with the Arizona Authors Association. To twelve-year-old Emma, life may be hard, but it is basically good. She has finished sixth grade and is nearly a young lady. But in the summer of 1913, her life, and the lives of everyone in the region, will be changed forever by a violent strike against the mining companies in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A friend whose father is not on strike will be forbidden to talk to her. Another will die in the terrible Italian Hall Tragedy on Christmas Eve. Only the trait the Finnish people call Sisu will help her and others in the region live through it.