Home › Taxonomy term

Depressions - United States - 1929-1933 -- fiction

Christopher Paul Curtis: “Humor Is a Survival Tactic.”

Fri, 05/03/2013 - 13:00 | Virginia Johnson
in
Christopher Paul Curtis

The guy hanging car doors at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, for 13 years was taking home a decent wage, but he wanted much more out of life than that. There was another side to Christopher Paul Curtis—a creative side. On his job breaks, he kept a journal and wrote stories. The first of those, he said, were “just plain bad,”* but he got better. A lot better. His first wife encouraged him to keep writing, so he quit the job at the plant, moved the family just a little way to Canada, took other jobs that were less mind-numbing, as well as courses in creative writing. Ten years later, his first book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, won the Newbery Honor, the Golden Kite Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award.  

The Mighty Miss Malone

in

By Christopher Paul Curtis

Go to catalog

With love and determination befitting "the world's greatest family," Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression.

Reserve this title

Turtle in Paradise

in

By Jennifer L. Holm

Go to catalog
In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.
Reserve this title

Hidden Places

in

By Lynn Austin

Go to catalog

During the Great Depression, Eliza Rose Wyatt, a young widow with three small children, tries to keep her family orchard running alone. When Gabriel Harper, a drifter, arrives in town, he seems like just the help that Eliza has been looking for. Also available on video.

Reserve this title

The Girl in the Glass

in

By Jeffrey Ford

Go to catalog
"The Great Depression has bound a nation in despair -- and only a privileged few have risen above it: the exorbitantly wealthy ... and the hucksters who feed upon them. Diego, a seventeen-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, owes his salvation to master grifter Thomas Schell. Together with Schell's gruff and powerful partner, they sail comfortably through hard times, scamming New York's grieving rich with elaborate, ingeniously staged séances -- until an impossible occurrence changes everything.

"While 'communing with spirits,' Schell sees an image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently entreating the con man for help. Though well aware that his otherworldly 'powers' are a sham, Schell inexplicably offers his services to help find the lost child -- drawing Diego along with him into a tangled maze of deadly secrets and terrible experimentation."

Reserve this title

Saving Strawberry Farm

in

By Deborah Hopkinson

Go to catalog

During the Great Depression, Davey learns that a neighbor's property is about to be auctioned, and he rallies his friends, neighbors, and family to help save Strawberry Farm.

Reserve this title

Ironweed

in

By William Kennedy

Go to catalog
"Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally - and fatally - dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present..."
Reserve this title

Winter Is Not Forever

in

By Janet Oke

Go to catalog

"Readers will laugh and cry as they follow the story of Josh Jones, an orphan growing up during the Great Depression. Eighteen-year-old Auntie Lou is the only mother Josh has ever known. When his grandfather and uncle start talking about finding a husband for his aunt, he knows something has to be done! As he grows to manhood through disappointment and tragedy, triumph and joy, Josh learns to trust God no matter what life brings."
Seasons of the Heart series, Book 3.

Reserve this title

The Blue Bottle Club

in

By Penelope J. Stokes

Go to catalog
In the wake of the depression of 1929, four friends gather in a cold, dusty attic on Christmas day to make a solemn pact. Our dreams for the future, they whisper, as they place tiny pieces of paper holding their life wishes into the blue, cabin-shaped bottle. Letitia dreams of marriage and children; Mary hopes to be a painter; Eleanor aspires to help those in need as a social worker; Adora longs to be a Broadway actress. Four girls, four dreams, and four futures sealed in a cobalt blue bottle. Sixty-five years later, local news reporter Brendan Delaney stumbles upon the bottle, discovering the most meaningful story of her career and possibly the meaning missing from her own life.
Reserve this title

A Room of My Own

in

By Ann Tatlock

Go to catalog

Times are hard in 1932, and Virginia Eide, 13, must give up her room when her uncle's family moves into her home. Through the long summer of poverty, danger, and fear, young Virginia discovers that the happiness she hopes for herself won't be found in the fulfillment of her adolescent dreams, but in that place she had never before considered--the role of serving others.

Reserve this title