At the start of this novel, set in the 1840s, Lyddie Worthen’s father abandons the family in search of work. Fourteen-year-old Lyddie cares for her family until her mother gives her away as a servant in order to settle a debt. The kindness of her Quaker neighbors, a friend’s loan of five silver dollars, and a generously repaid debt from a runaway slave, help Lyddie to cling to her dream of saving her family’s farm. After years of toiling in a sewing mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, Lyddie earns enough to save the farm, but uses the money to save her siblings from a fate similar to her own. Just as the mill’s machinery passes thread from one loom to the next, the characters in the story pass gifts — tangible and intangible — to one another. This empowering novel about hardship, determination, giving, and love shows readers that the most beautiful aspect of humans is the humanity that lies within us.