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Banner: Aboriginal Stories
 

Annotated Award-Winning Titles

Cover of The Blue Jean Book: The Story Behind the Seams   The Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize
(West Coast Book Prize Society)
For best picture book and illustrated non-fiction book
The Blue Jean Book: The Story Behind the Seams
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Toronto: Annick Press,
2005. 79 p.
ISBN 1550379178 (bound)
ISBN 155037916X (paperback)
Ages 10 to 12

Blue jeans are worn by people of all ages and social classes around the world. On average, Canadians own seven pairs of jeans.

This well-researched book presents a history of jeans from their beginnings in the 1860s, when Levi Strauss, a prosperous San Francisco shopkeeper, partnered with Jacob Davis, a tailor who invented overalls with pockets held by copper rivets. They were an overnight success with miners and farmers.

The fabric, called "cloth de Nimes," was manufactured in Nîmes, France, which explains how the word denim came about. The blue dye used to colour the fabric was made from indigo, a plant from India brought back by Marco Polo. Nowadays, chemically derived colours are often used in the production of jeans.

The book addresses many social and political issues surrounding the manufacture of jeans, including the use of insecticides by cotton farmers, the low wages paid to sweatshop workers and the lucrative market of counterfeit brand-name jeans.

During the Second World War, American soldiers wore jeans as uniforms. Movie stars such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot made them a coveted fashion item. Once forbidden in the Soviet Union (Russia), jeans are now common apparel on every fashion catwalk and on every street. And companies continue to sign on celebrities to market their brand of jeans.

–JP


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Date Created: 2006-11-09
Date Modified: 2006-11-09

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