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Poverty

Lee Bennett Hopkins: Poetry for Everyone

Mon, 04/01/2013 - 08:11 | Virginia Johnson
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Cover to Been to Yesterdays by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Young Lee Bennett Hopkins was an unlikely candidate to go down in the Guinness Book of World Records for having edited the most poetry anthologies ever.  He spent half his childhood in the projects of Scranton, New Jersey, and hated school.  His father left the family when Lee was fourteen, leaving him to look after his younger brother and sister.  His mother had her own problems, but she did love her children.

What made the difference for him was a special teacher who gave him hope.  In eighth grade, Mrs. Ethel Kite McLaughlin encouraged him in his writing and urged him to go to as many plays as possible, some of which he managed to see by slipping into the theatres during intermission and catching this second act. This opened a new perspective for Lee, and he was soon on different path, away from the poverty and street life he had known.

Ranchero by Rick Gavin

Tue, 10/02/2012 - 00:00 | Meg Raymond
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Ranchero by Rick Gavin

I've got me a new boyfriend and his name is Rick Gavin. I don't actually know him, but he is the author of the darkly comic debut novel Ranchero, which made me cringe and laugh and scribble "I ♥ Rick" in pink glitter pen on all my notebook covers.

Nick Reid was a cop in Southwest Virginia. Something Happened (it's never explained in the book), and Nick ends up as a repo man down in the Mississippi Delta. One day, Nick and his partner Desmond set off on a routine repo to get payment or take back a flat screen TV from Percy Dwayne Dubois.

"But Percy Dwayne wouldn't give in. No, instead he went all white-trash philosophical and figured that since the world was against him, he might as well fight it. He hit Nick over the head with a fireplace shovel, stole the mint-condition calypso coral–colored 1969 Ranchero that Nick had borrowed from his landlady, and went on a rowdy ride across the Mississippi Delta." *

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Wed, 12/14/2011 - 01:00 | Alisha Abrams
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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Nickel and Dimed is the story of veteran journalist Barbara Ehrenreich’s investigation into low-wage America. Before she left her normal life to pursue this project, she already knew something of the problems that these workers endure because of her research into other social issues. Ehrenreich had suggested to the editor of Harper’s Magazine that someone should do an investigative piece about this group, but she never thought at the time that she would be the person to dig deep into the lives of the working poor in America.

Trash by Andy Mulligan

Mon, 06/06/2011 - 07:13 | Wini Ashooh
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Trash by Andy Mulligan

Raphael is fourteen years old and living in an unnamed, third-world country in Andy Mulligan's book, Trash.  He and his friend Gardo spend most of their days picking through the huge trash pile looking for everyday items and food.   Raphael and Gardo know that when the trash is dumped from the wealthy part of town they will have a heyday.  Most of the children in Raphael's village drop out of school to spend their day sifting through the trash to help support their families.  Families see school as a waste of time when their children could be helping out in a more productive manner with the trash picking.

The Jungle

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By by Upton Sinclair

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This 1906 bestseller shockingly reveals intolerable labor practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards as it tells the brutally grim story of a Slavic family that emigrates to America full of optimism but soon descends into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and despair. A fiercely realistic American classic that will haunt readers long after they've finished the last page.
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Alvin, Recollections and Reflections

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By John Harding, Jr.

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Though listed in our catalog as fiction, this biography interweaves much truth in its retelling of the life of Alvin "Stack" Wormley, an actual person born in 1912 in the Northen Neck. He worked as a farmer, fisherman, oysterman, in a canning factory and fought in World War II. The author knew and liked this man and set down some of his many conversations with him. After Alvin Wormley's death, John Harding, Jr. interviewed his friends and relatives to better tell the tale of an upstanding, uncommon man.
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Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk: An Irish Tale

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By Gerald McDermott

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Poor Tim and his wife Kathleen have little, not a penny or potato. When Tim goes out looking for a job he finds a group of leprechauns and demands their gold. Through his own foolishness and some trickery Tim gets more than he bargains for.

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Frank McCourt: The Man Himself

Mon, 08/24/2009 - 15:14 | Virginia Johnson
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When Frank McCourt passed last month, he left behind memoirs filled with anguish, love, and dark merriment.  Personal experiences are what this Irish-American author took and shaped into works of sorrowful beauty.

Gary Soto: Storyteller from the Barrio

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 10:52 | Virginia Johnson
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Gary Soto came from a hard background by anyone's reckoning. His young father died in an industrial accident when Gary was only five years old. His Mexican-American family was struggling and lived in a tough neighborhood--next to a junkyard and across from a pickle factory. All through school, he and his family worked at whatever jobs they could get, including picking fruits as migrant laborers.

Eleanor Estes: A Childhood Shared

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 11:12 | Virginia Johnson
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Eleanor Ruth Rosenfeld (Estes) loved to tell stories to children. She began by working as a children's assistant in her hometown library, but when she became sick with tuberculosis, she spent the quiet days of her recovery writing down her childhood memories as a series of stories for young readers.

In The Moffats, a terrific family, growing up during tough times in Cranbury, Connecticut in the 1910s, face calamity when the landlord puts a "For Sale" sign on their beloved yellow house. Janey's widowed mother works as a seamstress every day to put food on the table, coal in the grate, and clothes on their backs, but there isn't enough money left to buy a home. Week after week, month after month, the kids--fifteen-year-old Sylvie, twelve-year-old Joey, nine-year-old Janey, and five-year-old Rufus--expect the worst: that someone will buy their house, and then what will happen?