Lost »

In 1911 New York, sixteen-year-old Essie Rosenfeld must stop taking care of her irrepressible six-year-old sister when she goes to work at the Triangle Waist Company, where she befriends a missing heiress who is in hiding from her family and who seems to understand the feelings of heartache and grief that Essie is trying desperately to escape.

Library Media Connection

Many things are lost, and some may be found in this spellbinding tale of New York City in the early 1900s. Essie tells her story through two different time periods that are indicated by the use of different colored paper. As the story progresses, the reader comes to know that Essie has lost her little sister, Zelda, but Essie is in so much denial that she can't even bring herself to allow someone to say that Zelda is dead. Her mother has lost her husband, her daughter, and very nearly loses her son, yet she doesn't seem to be able to help Essie work through her grief. A young woman named Harriet, which Essie describes as "lost," comes to work at the shirtwaist factory where Essie works, and becomes a medium for Essie's change. Two historical events, the Traingle Shirtwaist fire and the disappearance of Dorothy Harriet Camille Arnold, the niece of a former Supreme Court Justice, set the stage for the tale. The characters and the plot are well developed and very believable. This could be used as a novel study in the middle school or in American literature or history classes. Recommended.