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In "Kids at Work," Russell Freedman explores the world of child labor during the years 1908-1918 when Lewis Hine, "teacher-crusader," worked as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). Hine's writing and the photos he gathered from across the country revealed a "shocking reality that most Americans had never seen before." Russell Freedman's intertwining of three distinct sources of information--facts, photographs, and the focused experience of a single individual--provides readers with the basis for compassionate imagining, a blending of both knowing and caring about the past. Freedman uses storytelling techniques such as vivid, detailed scenes; characters developed through the use of small but "telling" details; and personal anecdotes. Readers cannot fail to be moved by the numerous photographs taken by Lewis Hine. Using "direct eye" contact with the observer, Hine showed viewers the conditions under which children worked in mills, canneries, mines, farms, and factories. "Kids at Work" focuses on children's quality of life as a result of industrialization in the United States. Freedman helps bridge compassionate imagining with contemporary concern--child labor has not vanished from America. It exists today in children of recent immigrants and migrant farm workers. (Contains 17 references.) (CR)