Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster is a beautifully wholehearted novel about a chimney sweeper named Nan Sparrow set in Victorian London. Nan had always known and lived with the Sweep, a man that saved her from starvation when she was little and helped everyone around him. At least she used to before he one day mysteriously disappeared leaving her with only his hat, one of a sweep’s most prized possessions, and a piece of coal that always seemed to emit heat, no matter how cold it was. Once the Sweep left, Nan knew that she had to keep cleaning chimneys, as it was in her blood, so she signed a contract to be the apprentice of Wilkie Crudd, a crooked man who often beat the children if they performed badly. However, one day when Nan gets stuck chimney flue, she passes out. Her rival, Roger, “tries” to rescue her by burning her alive. Everyone thinks she dies, but somehow, Nan Sparrow survives.

When Nan wakes up, she finds herself in the attic of Miss Mayhew’s Seminary for Young Girls where she was thought to have died in the flue. There, she sees her little lump of coal rolling around, seemingly on its own. When Nan approaches her coal, she realizes that it’s alive, that it must have come alive and saved her from the fire by breaking open the chimney flue, the only reasonable answer because there was no one else around to help her. At first, Nan is scared, but then, she realizes that it’s harmless and feels like she should give it a name. And so she does, she names the little bit of coal Charlie. 

Then, she decides that she has to run away from Crudd, the terrible man that has enslaved her for many years. They run as far away from Crudd as they can, they run to the place where no chimney climber would go, the House of a Hundred Chimneys, a place that has always seemed haunted to every sweep.

At the House of a Hundred Chimneys, she tries to figure out more about what Charlie is to eventually find out that he is a golem, sent to protect her by the Sweep. Along with that, she decides to carry on the Sweep’s legacy and protect other chimney sweeps in London from their vicious, cruel, masters. With the journey she takes, Nan slowly begins to learn more and more about what really happened to her beloved Sweep.

I’ve loved this book since I first set eyes on it, the charming, fairytale-esque way the story is told draws the reader’s attention wonderfully. However, the book also expresses topics such as abuse and child labor in ways that develop the characters and make the reader care much more about them, all with a veil of mystery, sadness, and loss, draped over the entire story.