There is a bit of content that may be just a bit heavy for some younger / less mature readers. We will share it below so you can make a decision for your young readers.
The fictitious main characters are two children. Mom has passed away, dad passed away earlier in their childhood in a coal mine accident and now the children are homeless. We are given some detail around mom passing away from consumption (mentions blood when coughing, etc.). A heartless woman then kicks them out immediately after her death and tells them they owe money.
There is an early somewhat intense scene where the children awake on the street to a scary dog threatening them.
Someone mentions “I did hear once of dogs eating people during a famine”.
As the book moves to expose the evils of drunkenness that the Salvation Army preached about, one side character shares that his dad comes home drunk and beats him nearly every night.
Another evil they fight against is “white slaving” and the book shares that this is the terrible practice of the time where girls are kidnapped and sold to wealthy men overseas. Nothing sexual is mentioned, but they do say that the girls are often drugged and even hidden in coffins to send. They even share that the girls would sometimes die from overdose or even awaking in this small space and going crazy while trying to escape. The book is doing this to show the seriousness of what was being stood up against, and is good at its heart, but you need to ensure your child is ready for this content.
Eventually Amy herself is kidnapped by two men. Jack worries she could even be “sold to someone who will beat her”. Before the book culminates in a happy ending, Jack shows a misunderstanding of God and the state of this world when he says, “If there was a God like they said there was, He certainly wouldn’t let such a terrible thing happen to his sister. Afterall, she had never done anything so bad”.
In order to save Amy, Jack goes to a shady part of town ravaged by sin. He sees multiple men passed out drunk (referred to as “drunks”).
A couple other things to be aware of:
The siblings are a bit snippy or rude with each other a few times (in a really, really hard situation, but still not ideal).
A woman is described as fat. An older woman is said to have a face like a prune.
A terrible pub owner admits to selling alcohol to kids.
The term “bawdy houses” is used, which is a term for what we might call a brothel today (no hint to what they are used for in the text).