Great Depression

Koller, Jackie French - Nothing to Fear (279 pages) When his father moves away to find work and his mother becomes ill, Danny struggles to help his family during the Great Depression.

Levinson, Riki - Boys Here, Girls There (101 pages) During the Depression, the year that six-year-old Jennie starts school brings many changes to her loving Jewish family, including her father’s loss of his job and the birth of a new baby.

Hesse, Karen - Out of the Dust (227 pages) In this 1998 Newbery Award winning book, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family’s wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Reeder, Carolyn - Grandpa’s Mountain (171 pages) During the Depression, eleven-year-old Carrie makes her annual summer visit to her relatives in the Blue Ridge Mountains and watches her determined grandfather fight against the government’s attempt to take his farm land for a new national park.

Snyder, Zilpha Keatley - Cat Running (168 pages) When Cat Kinsey builds a secret hideout to escape her unhappy home life, she slowly gets to know a poor family who have come to California after losing their Texas home to the dust storms of the 1930’s.

Turnbull, Ann - Speedwell (119 pages) With her father away looking for work and her mother weighed down by the troubles of the Depression of the 1930’s, Mary wants to help her family and sees her father’s racing pigeon Speedwell as her best hope of doing so.

Whitmore, Arvella - The Bread Winner (138 pages) When both her parents are unable to find work and pay the bills during the Great Depression, resourceful Sarah Ann Puckett saves the family from the poorhouse by selling her prizewinning homemade bread.