Mill Paperback – October 30, 1989

Such a great book. Educational, interesting and beautiful. The age of great books like thos seems to be fading.

This is a fascinating account of the life and times of a millwright and his trade. Details on choosing a location for the mill, building the mill, and how the machinery to grind the grain worked puts the reader in the position as the millwright himself. This book is written as part history book, part informational, and even part journal, using fictional diary entries to give the reader a sense of the everyday life of a miller. A touch of drama is thrown in as we read of mill-workers who are injured and/or killed while on the job -"1864 August 15: Mary McDonnell was drawn into the machinery by the belting today and lost her right arm below the elbow. I fear the heat will not help her recoveryAugust 17: Mary McDonnell died today, the infection having spread too quickly from her injury. I will send her wages on to her mother in Southbridge."This book is supposedly written for children - I first discovered it in an elementary school library - but I find it more suitable for adults. I have found that many history books geared toward the younger set can have information not found in the more adult-oriented books. The Mill by David Macaulay is one of them. The illustrations themselves are very well done, and the details of running a mill is probably the best I have seen thus far.Great reading about the lifeblood of a 19th century community.

I enjoyed this book. This the third book I've enjoyed by this author. Mill is good but it could have been more in depth. I realize that it was the author's intent to show only two northeastern mills but it would have been helpful to have seen examples of other mills. Of particular interest to me are mills that used tub wheels. There were no mention of these in the book. The book did fill a need for me as I was researching a particular mill. Based on the book I was able to determine what kind of wheel arrangement was used in the mill being researched. I felt that the drawings in "Cathedral" were better. Almost a great book.

I read this book aloud to my 4th and 7th grader as we studied the early 1800s in history this year. It is a beautiful book, full of wonderful details--but at times we found it to be a little dry and monotonous (we were also aiming to read it all in one week, so we trudged through several pages at a time). But the depth of understanding of how mills work and how they influenced the landscape of New England proved to be invaluable! Some of my favorite literature is set in the 1800s and reading this book gave me a deeper understanding of how life was back then. A few weeks after reading Mill, we moved on to the Civil War period and read another wonderful book, Turn Homeward, Hannahlee. The main characters in that story are mill hands, so we felt like we enjoyed that story even more, armed with our new knowledge of life around a mill. Now I'm excited to order and read all of David Macaulay's different architecture books to my kids! This book would also be perfect for high schoolers to enjoy reading on their own--or any child who loves to know how things work in great detail!

Detailed drawings and explanations depict the workings of a technology from the past.

I first read this book in middle school. I enjoyed the pictures and glanced at the story. As an adult, many years later, I still enjoyed the pictures and diagrams, but I enjoyed the story more. Macaulay does a good job of coming up with a narrative that could just as easily be pictures on how buildings come to be.It's a good story and a wonderful look at something most people wouldn't think twice about

David Macaulay's many books explaining planning, creation and use of "things" are invaluable assets when you are invested in encouraging curiosity, creativity and love of reading in your children. Writer and wonderful illustrator, Macaulay caught my imagination with "Pyramid" and "Cathedral", large format books that show how each was built and manages to incorporate architecture, engineering, sociology, economics and fun into books which captivate not only a parent or teacher reading them to children a little young to read the text themselves but also the child who returns to them repeatedly for delightful pictures and, ultimately, entertaining texts. Many topics, many books. This one, obviously, is about the building of a mill.

This series from D. Macaulay has been around for decades, and some of the titles are really phenomenal (Cathedral and Underground are my two favorites). I purchased this one because I thought it would relate well to our American History studies this year, and tie in the architecture my son loves. At 8, my son reads well (5th - 6th grade levels), but this book is still a little above him in its density and concepts for purely independent reading. It's better if I read some parts aloud, then let him study the drawings and pick some to duplicate. As you might expect, a mill is interesting, but not captivating. I can't wait to read Pyramid with him in World History next year, however!