The short story "Clean Sweep" by Joan Bauer is written like a diary of a young girl who works in her mother’s business - cleaning houses.
The story starts with a description of dust: what it looks like when we see it under the microscope. Things can be seen differently if we pay enough attention to them - this idea was implemented in the main part of the story.
The central action of the story starts when the family got an order to clean the attic of the house of an old lady. She lived alone. The girl suggested to throw away some stuff from the attic: old newspapers and torn books, toys and so on. The landlady disagreed and even became angry with this suggestion. Along with other things, the old lady saw a ragged book which she thought had been taken by her sister. The sisters hadn’t talked for many years. The girl advised the old lady to call her sister but this suggestion was met with indignation. It was clear that these old things aroused a lot of memories for the mistress of the house. The next day, the old lady eventually called her sister and they planned a meeting after many years of being apart.
At the beginning of the story, the author presented that by paying attention we can have a different view (it was inspired by dust). In the last part of the story this idea was expressed with links to memories and it also applies to relationships between people. It certainly has given "food for thought".
This is the link to the text of the story:
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