- With brush and pail and soot and song!A sweep brings luck all season long!Nan's and the Sweep's song
Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster is a Fantasy book by Jonathan Auxier.
Nan Sparrow is a young girl living in Victorian England, where she is under the care and tutelage of a poor chimney sweep known simply as "the Sweep", who's taught her the trade, which she seems to enjoy. Unfortunately, Nan hasn't seen the Sweep since he left her five years ago. Since then, she's had to live and work at "The Clean Sweep", owned by Wilkie Crudd Esq., who treats her and the boys in his employ very poorly when he's not wooing any girl who catches his fancy. All Nan has left of the Sweep is her char, a large perpetually-warm clump of soot that she found the day he disappeared.
One day, Nan is sent to sweep the chimneys at Miss Mayhew's Seminary for Young Ladies. As she does so, she finds herself stuck in the chimney, and her rival, Roger, decides to light a fire in the chimney to get her out, nearly cooking her alive in the process. When she comes to, she finds she's been moved into an empty attic, and when she goes to pick up her char... it moves.
Nan then discovers that her char is alive, which utterly baffles her. Despite that, however, she decides she needs to find a place to keep her char, which she names Charlie, safe. She also decides she can't be seen by Mr. Crudd or any of the Clean Sweep employees, lest she get in trouble for what happened at the school. From there, Nan's life really starts to change.
The book was released on September 25th, 2018.
Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster contains examples of:
- Destination Defenestration: When Mr. Crudd tries to shove Nan into a fireplace, Charlie saves her by throwing Mr. Crudd through a window.
- Disney Villain Death: Wilkie Crudd, when he falls 200 feet off the Matchstick.
- Flashback: Some parts of the book delve into Nan's past with the Sweep. This is shown as the text being italic.
- Golem: Charlie is a soot golem.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Charlie gives up his life to heal Nan, who was mortally wounded from her fall off the Matchstick.
- Kids Are Cruel: A few examples:
- Roger, who likes annoying Nan by calling her "Cinderella", and making the new kids do his work.
- Nan recalls the time she bought a porcelain doll. When some kids saw her playing with it, they decided to play Keep Away with it, and ended up shattering its head against the ground.
- When the Sweep first met Toby, the latter was getting lynched by a bunch of boys, apparently for being Jewish.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Nan can sometimes be mistaken for a boy due to her short hair whenever she's covered in soot.
- Posthumous Character: The Sweep.
- Tragic Keepsake: Nan's char, which is the last thing she has of the Sweep.
- Would Hurt a Child: Mr. Crudd, when he has Nan at his mercy, tries to burn her to death in a fireplace.
- The other sweep masters are so enraged by their workers protesting at the May Day Parade that they beat them in front of all the people watching.
