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The Tempering
The summer of 1912 is a decisive one for Karl, Jame, and Andy--three young men in a Pennsylvania steel town--as they find and lose jobs, fall in love, and begin to shape their adult lives. Reprint.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
192 pages, Paperback
Published October 26, 2000
9 people want to read
About the author
Gloria Skurzynski
90 books30 followers"May you live in interesting times."
That ambiguous wish was not meant to be kind, because interesting times can be difficult. You and I certainly live in interesting times - dangerous, challenging, and fascinating.
My parents were born just before the start of the twentieth century; my youngest grandchild arrived in this century's final decade. The years in between have been the most dynamic in the history of the human race. Technical knowledge has exploded; so has the Earth's human population. We can create almost anything, yet each day we lose parts of our planet that can never be replaced.
I'm greedy: I want to write about all of it - the history, the grief, joy, and excitement of being human in times past; the cutting-edge inventions of times almost here.
--from the author's website
Gloria Skurzynski has also co-written books with her daughter Alane Ferguson.
That ambiguous wish was not meant to be kind, because interesting times can be difficult. You and I certainly live in interesting times - dangerous, challenging, and fascinating.
My parents were born just before the start of the twentieth century; my youngest grandchild arrived in this century's final decade. The years in between have been the most dynamic in the history of the human race. Technical knowledge has exploded; so has the Earth's human population. We can create almost anything, yet each day we lose parts of our planet that can never be replaced.
I'm greedy: I want to write about all of it - the history, the grief, joy, and excitement of being human in times past; the cutting-edge inventions of times almost here.
--from the author's website
Gloria Skurzynski has also co-written books with her daughter Alane Ferguson.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 28, 2025
In Gloria Skurzynski's 1983 early 20th century American steel industry themed young adult historical fiction novel The Tempering (with tempering meaning the heating and subsequent cooling that toughens steel), main protagonist Karl Kerner is the fifteen going on sixteen son of an Irish immigrant mother and a second generation German steelworker father, and with The Tempering taking place in Canaan, Pennsylvania (which is the fictional counterpart of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, and where Skurzynski was born and raised).
Although The Tempering does not present all that much textual elegance, is entirely plot-driven and moves along without either character depth or all that much actual character development either except for a very tiny bit of mostly on the surface spiritual maturation and growth at the end of the story (which rather annoys me as an older adult reader but that my inner teenager does not really mind all that much although even she is just a wee bit frustrated with and by Gloria Skurzynski's somewhat flat and rather lacking in nuances and dimensions narrative) The Tempering is definitely nicely historical, is culturally enlightening as well as accurate, with Skurzynski's realistic pictures of mill working conditions and the total power of the shop, of steel mill foremen (and also of the owners of course) giving readers from about the age of twelve onwards a good and also a necessary opportunity to see, to understand, to appreciate some of the many reasons for trade unions organising strikes etc. and is equally so rather continuously suspenseful and fast moving, with The Tempering having Gloria Skurzynski believably depict what life is like in a Pennsylvania steel town in 1912 and where most boys (like Karl and his best friend Jame Culley) impatiently wait to turn sixteen and to then be allowed to take on a job in one of Canaan's many steel mills (and where those who might question this, who see the social and gender stratifications, who might desire something else, such as Karl Kerner's studious friend Andy Stulak and his Russian immigrant teacher Yulyona Petrov whose brother Aleksei was killed on the job on his first day of work are at best looked at majorly askance and suspiciously).
Now in The Tempering and since he works as an assistant foreman, Karl Kerner's father is shown by Skurzynski as earning a pretty good wage combined with decent job security, but that Irish American Mayo Culley next door (and Jame Culley's father) has been permanently out of work since a mill accident to his hand (with the Culleys barely surviving by the mother taking in laundry and Jame lying about his age to get a job at Firth Sterling but then getting fired for a minor and silly prank that went wrong) and that Andy Stulak's father will never be promoted from the lowest rank at his place of work due to pretty all-encompassing anti Central and Eastern European immigrant sentiment, and with Karl's Irish-born mother Maggie Rose also fiercely hating the Culleys and blaming them for infecting the Kerners with the diphtheria that killed two of her children, so that when Jame Culley and Karl's seventeen-year-old sister Kathleen fall in love and begin courting, they of course must do this in secret (and to finally elope).
And within the grittily industrial environment and world of The Tempering, where the jealousy and suspicion that are often commonplace in a town where most people must live hand-to-mouth, where the many different ethnic groups do not always know each other's customs and also tend have language related communication difficulties, where workers are seen as to be exploited tools of industry and not as human beings deserving adequate wages and also benefits, there indeed is very much textually astir in The Tempering, with Jame Culley's daredevil high spirits, Andy Stulak's decision to run away from the town's injustice and from his stingy father's ill nature, with Karl's father's brief stint as chief of police (where his honesty gains and loses him the job), and Maggie Rose Kerner's terrible carrying on and eventual reconciliation when Jame and Kathleen elope make for an interesting but also sometimes overly information dropping reading experience (and that for me, if Gloria Skurzynski would present less issues and less scenarios in The Tempering, the story would still be readable, would still be enlightening but would also leave room for some character depth and would also make Karl Kerner a more solid main protagonist and with his story in The Tempering standing front and centre and not kind of getting lost in the shuffle so to speak).
For Karl's personal story in The Tempering, trying to get a job at fifteen at a Canaan mill where no one cares about the age limit when steel orders need to be filled (and immediately getting fired along with Jame Cullen), once back at school becoming enamoured of his beautiful new teacher Yulyona Petrov and then running away to Gary, Indiana with Andy Stulak when Karl Kerner thinks that his teacher is being adulterous but retuning home to Canaan for his birthday after realising that Yuyliona and the mill head are not having an affair but are in fact secretly married (and also and in particular Karl's explanations to his teacher as to why he wants to quit school and get a steel mill job at sixteen, that Karl Kerner wants to with hands-on working experience try to change things at the steel mills to help workers), while all this is interesting, it gets kind of textually buried because Skurzynski's text has so many different threads, sub-plots and the like (and that in particular this combined with the above mentioned lack of thematic and character depth is the main reason why I do find The Tempering sufficiently interesting but also not all that engaging and emotionally satisfying and as such also only having a three star rating).
Although The Tempering does not present all that much textual elegance, is entirely plot-driven and moves along without either character depth or all that much actual character development either except for a very tiny bit of mostly on the surface spiritual maturation and growth at the end of the story (which rather annoys me as an older adult reader but that my inner teenager does not really mind all that much although even she is just a wee bit frustrated with and by Gloria Skurzynski's somewhat flat and rather lacking in nuances and dimensions narrative) The Tempering is definitely nicely historical, is culturally enlightening as well as accurate, with Skurzynski's realistic pictures of mill working conditions and the total power of the shop, of steel mill foremen (and also of the owners of course) giving readers from about the age of twelve onwards a good and also a necessary opportunity to see, to understand, to appreciate some of the many reasons for trade unions organising strikes etc. and is equally so rather continuously suspenseful and fast moving, with The Tempering having Gloria Skurzynski believably depict what life is like in a Pennsylvania steel town in 1912 and where most boys (like Karl and his best friend Jame Culley) impatiently wait to turn sixteen and to then be allowed to take on a job in one of Canaan's many steel mills (and where those who might question this, who see the social and gender stratifications, who might desire something else, such as Karl Kerner's studious friend Andy Stulak and his Russian immigrant teacher Yulyona Petrov whose brother Aleksei was killed on the job on his first day of work are at best looked at majorly askance and suspiciously).
Now in The Tempering and since he works as an assistant foreman, Karl Kerner's father is shown by Skurzynski as earning a pretty good wage combined with decent job security, but that Irish American Mayo Culley next door (and Jame Culley's father) has been permanently out of work since a mill accident to his hand (with the Culleys barely surviving by the mother taking in laundry and Jame lying about his age to get a job at Firth Sterling but then getting fired for a minor and silly prank that went wrong) and that Andy Stulak's father will never be promoted from the lowest rank at his place of work due to pretty all-encompassing anti Central and Eastern European immigrant sentiment, and with Karl's Irish-born mother Maggie Rose also fiercely hating the Culleys and blaming them for infecting the Kerners with the diphtheria that killed two of her children, so that when Jame Culley and Karl's seventeen-year-old sister Kathleen fall in love and begin courting, they of course must do this in secret (and to finally elope).
And within the grittily industrial environment and world of The Tempering, where the jealousy and suspicion that are often commonplace in a town where most people must live hand-to-mouth, where the many different ethnic groups do not always know each other's customs and also tend have language related communication difficulties, where workers are seen as to be exploited tools of industry and not as human beings deserving adequate wages and also benefits, there indeed is very much textually astir in The Tempering, with Jame Culley's daredevil high spirits, Andy Stulak's decision to run away from the town's injustice and from his stingy father's ill nature, with Karl's father's brief stint as chief of police (where his honesty gains and loses him the job), and Maggie Rose Kerner's terrible carrying on and eventual reconciliation when Jame and Kathleen elope make for an interesting but also sometimes overly information dropping reading experience (and that for me, if Gloria Skurzynski would present less issues and less scenarios in The Tempering, the story would still be readable, would still be enlightening but would also leave room for some character depth and would also make Karl Kerner a more solid main protagonist and with his story in The Tempering standing front and centre and not kind of getting lost in the shuffle so to speak).
For Karl's personal story in The Tempering, trying to get a job at fifteen at a Canaan mill where no one cares about the age limit when steel orders need to be filled (and immediately getting fired along with Jame Cullen), once back at school becoming enamoured of his beautiful new teacher Yulyona Petrov and then running away to Gary, Indiana with Andy Stulak when Karl Kerner thinks that his teacher is being adulterous but retuning home to Canaan for his birthday after realising that Yuyliona and the mill head are not having an affair but are in fact secretly married (and also and in particular Karl's explanations to his teacher as to why he wants to quit school and get a steel mill job at sixteen, that Karl Kerner wants to with hands-on working experience try to change things at the steel mills to help workers), while all this is interesting, it gets kind of textually buried because Skurzynski's text has so many different threads, sub-plots and the like (and that in particular this combined with the above mentioned lack of thematic and character depth is the main reason why I do find The Tempering sufficiently interesting but also not all that engaging and emotionally satisfying and as such also only having a three star rating).
May 25, 2010
In a small town in Western Pennsylvania (c. 1912), 15 year old Karl longs for the day when he can leave school and go work in the local steel mill.
Lots of ethnic customs (Irish, Slovak) and early 20th century details.
Recc. for 6th - 9th graders.
Lots of ethnic customs (Irish, Slovak) and early 20th century details.
Recc. for 6th - 9th graders.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews