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ABRAMS BOOKS - Auxier Jonathan Auxier

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160 pages

English

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For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on "climbing boys"-orphans owned by chimney sweeps-to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless, and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived-and a girl. With her wits and will, she's managed to beat the deadly odds time and time again. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature-a golem-made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire. Sweep is the story of a girl and her monster. Together, these two outcasts carve out a life-saving one another in the process. By one of today's most powerful storytellers, Sweep is a heartrending adventure about the everlasting gifts of friendship and hope.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	25 septembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781683354062
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Auxier, Jonathan, author.
Title: Sweep: the story of a girl and her monster / by Jonathan Auxier.
Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2018. | Summary: In nineteenth-century England, after her father s disappearance Nan Sparrow, ten, works as a climbing boy, aiding chimney sweeps, but when her most treasured possessions end up in a fireplace, she unwittingly creates a golem.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018014305 | ISBN 978-1-4197-3140-2 (hardback) | eISBN 978-1-68335-406-2
Subjects: | CYAC: Golem-Fiction. | Chimney sweeps-Fiction. | Homeless persons-Fiction. | Orphans-Fiction. | Great Britain-History-19th century-Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Orphans Foster Homes. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Homelessness Poverty. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy Magic.
Classification: LCC PZ7.A9314 Swe 2018 | DDC [Fic]-dc23
TEXT COPYRIGHT 2018 JONATHAN AUXIER
ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT 2018 DADU SHIN
MAP ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT 2018 JONATHAN AUXIER
BOOK DESIGN BY CHAD W. BECKERMAN JACKET DESIGN BY ALYSSA NASSNER AND CHAD W. BECKERMAN JACKET TYPOGRAPHY BY HANA NAKAMURA JACKET COPYRIGHT 2018 AMULET BOOKS
Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
For those who have saved me
M ARY , P ENELOPE , M ATILDA , AND H AZEL
Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

The imagination is the true fire, stolen from heaven, to animate this cold creature of clay.
~ Mary Wollstonecraft
PART ONE INNOCENCE
THE GIRL AND HER SWEEP
There are all sorts of wonderful things a person might see very early in the morning. You might see your parents sleeping. You might see an ambitious bird catching a worm. You might see an unclaimed penny on the sidewalk or the first rays of dawn. And if you are very, very lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of the girl and her Sweep .
Look! Here they are now, approaching through the early fog: a thin man with a long broom over one shoulder, the end bobbing up and down with every step. And trailing behind him, pail in hand, a little girl, who loves that man more than anything in the world .
The girl sticks to the man like a shadow. If he hops over a puddle, she hops, too. If he skips along a rail, she does the same. It is clear just by looking at them that the little girl belongs to the man, just as the man belongs to the little girl. And as they pass between sleeping houses, they sing at the top of their lungs:
With brush and pail and soot and song!
A sweep brings luck all season long!
The song is not particularly special. Their voices are not particularly sweet. But when they sing, the most unusual thing happens. Instead of people snapping their windows shut to block out the sound, they rise from their beds, one by one, throw back the curtains, and decide to love the world just a little bit more. Parents suddenly feel the urge to hug their children. Children suddenly feel the urge to let them .
And every person, young and old, spends the rest of the day softly humming the song of the girl and her Sweep .
For as long as the girl could remember, the Sweep had been at her side. First he carried her in a sling over his back and fed her bottles of milk. When she got a bit older, he would let her ride upon his shoulders and pick apples from the trees they passed. And when she got older yet, they walked together like true equals .
The Sweep shared everything with the girl. If he had a scarf, he would let her wear it during the cold days and take it for himself on the hot ones. If they found a loaf of bread, the girl would eat half and pass the rest to the Sweep; he would eat half of what remained and then give it back to the girl; then she would eat half again; and so on. They would trade the loaf back and forth like this until the bread was gone and their bellies were full .
The Sweep let the girl share in his work, too. First he just had her scoop ashes from the hearth, but when the girl became a bit stronger, he let her climb chimneys with him. From the start, the girl was a natural climber . She had long limbs, just like the Sweep, and her thin frame could wriggle through even the tiniest flues .
Being inside a chimney is a frightening thing; it s so dark and cramped that one can scarcely tell which way is up. And so when the girl and her Sweep climbed inside a chimney, they would sing to each other. The Sweep, who always went up first, would brush out soot and nests and cobwebs, singing all the while. And the girl knew that all she had to do was follow his voice and she would be safe .
Eventually the two of them would emerge from the top of the flue, filthy and triumphant. The view from a chimney stack is a truly majestic thing. For miles in every direction all you can see are rooftops and more rooftops, like tiny dunes stretching to the horizon. Many times the Sweep remarked that kings and lords couldn t wish for a better view-and he should know, because he had swept a few palaces in his day .
Of course, life was not always easy for the girl and her Sweep. Many nights were cold and wet. Many days were humid and hungry. More than once they entered a new town and quickly found themselves surrounded by a band of disgruntled local sweeps. Whenever this happened, the Sweep would ask the girl to watch the tools while he and the other sweeps talked things through in the alley. He would emerge a few minutes later, limping slightly, his clothes a little torn, but smiling as broadly as ever. He would report to the girl that the other sweeps had told him of a neighborhood just a few miles off with some particularly good houses. In thanks for this valuable information, he had decided to give them all the money in his pockets .
When the Sweep did secure work, he would get paid a coin or sometimes even two coins. On his way out the door, he would always warn the homeowner to burn the chimney hot all night long-just in case any sparrows tried to make a nest up there. (This was a special joke between the girl and the Sweep, and it was all the girl could do not to spoil things by laughing.)
Later that night, once the sun had set and the town was asleep, they would return to the same house, and the girl would clamber up the rain gutter to the edge of the roof and let down a rope for the Sweep to follow after her. Then, walking very carefully, so as not to make any noise, they would lay blankets against the smoking chimney stack, which was warm to the touch, and make their beds .
Most children despise bedtime and will do anything to avoid it. This is because they are forced to sleep under scratchy covers inside stifling houses. If they could sleep like the girl and her Sweep-on warm rooftops beneath a canopy of stars-they would understand just how magical bedtime could be .
As they stared into the infinite dark, sometimes the Sweep would tell the girl stories about their day. Other times they would just lie in silence. But every night ended the same way: with her falling asleep against his chest as he stroked her hair and sang her their special lullaby:
With brush and pail and soot and song!
A sweep brings luck all season long!
As the Sweep sang these words, the girl would drift off-dreaming of stars and seas and adventures far, far away .
This was life as the girl knew it. And every night she slept soundly, knowing that she and the Sweep would have each other forever .
VOICES IN THE DARK
Nan, tell us about the Sweep.
It was dark in the coal bin, but Nan could tell it was Newt who was asking. Newt was newest to Crudd s crew. He was barely six years old; he didn t know all the rules. The first rule was you never asked another climber about his life Before.
There were five climbing boys in the coal bin: Newt, Whittles, Shilling-Tom, Roger, and Nan. Nan wasn t a boy, but you d never know that to look at her. She was as grimy as the rest of them. Who told you about the Sweep? Nan said. Was it Roger?
Keep me out of it, Cinderella, Roger muttered. He called Nan Cinderella because he thought it annoyed her. He was right.
No one told me, Newt said. I dreamed about him. Last night I slept in your corner. I dreamed him and the girl were both singing to all the people. Only I woke up before I could hear the words.
This was a thing that happened: the dreaming. Every so often one of the boys would say that he had dreamed about the Sweep. Nan couldn t explain it. It seemed to happen whenever one of them fell asleep close to her. All she knew was that she didn t like it. The Sweep was hers .
It was about you, wasn t it? Newt whispered. You re the girl from my dream.
No, Nan said. I m the girl who wants to go to sleep. She d spent fourteen hours climbing chimneys and knew there were more waiting for her tomorrow.
You re splashing in the wrong puddle, Newt, said a raspy voice by the slat window. It was Whittles. He was only eight, but his voice sounded like an old man s on account of breathing too much chimney soot. Me