Steel Town Book

In Steel Town,
it's always dark.
In Steel Town,
it's always raining...

In Steel Town, the mills blaze all day and all night, making steel and even more steel to be shipped over the Magic Mountains, down the Pitch-Black River, and far, far away. The men who work in the mills work as hard as the machines that make the steel, never stopping. But when the men go home at night, a different side of Steel Town emerges — one filled with music and neighbors, pierogies and spaghetti, churches and front porches. This gritty yet poetic world is brought to life through Jonah Winter's lyrical, rhythmic text and Terry Widener's luscious, nocturnal illustrations, whose massive figures glow with the few lights that shine through this darkness. This is a portrait of an imaginary town derived from the very real American steel towns of the 1930s, when the sky was often black as night all day and the cavernous mills belched out fire and smoke. Here is a journey to a town that time has not forgotten, just misplaced: Steel Town.

Children's Literature

Steel mills never sleep. The morning workers pass the night workers as they descend the stairs into the huge factory. The men function in a world of darkness with black smoke filling the air and rain so constant that they do not bother with umbrellas. The fires are bright and hot. Temperatures inside the blast furnaces reach 3,000 degrees, so nearby workers must wear protective clothing. The detailed description of the process of making steel is followed by a few pages showing the men playing pool in their spare time and the women sharing vegetables and preparing meals. The historic account of steel production (around 1935?) is vividly described in terse, sometimes repetitious text. The vibrant illustrations are the main attraction of this oversized book. Covering most of the surfaces of the pages with dark, somber scenes, they create a realistic sense of the dreary routines experienced in this time and place. A valuable resource for learning about the production of steel and the lives of people in mill towns. Reviewer: Phyllis Kennemer, Ph.D.