Raising four strong-willed younger siblings after her mother's death and her father's imprisonment, seventeen-year-old Lanie Freeman never knows what new adventure will roll into view-such as her brother's wild idea to turn the family's old truck into a traveling store. The Freeman Rolling Emporium could provide the financial security Lanie and her family so desperately need, or it could tear them apart. Yet it's only a prelude to other changes. Author...

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future....

When her father's business closes because of the Great Depression forcing Kit to make changes in her life, the nine-year-old responds with resourcefulness.

Tired of doing chores and longing for adventure during the Great Depression, Kit meets a hobo and decides to hop a freight train.

He had read the passage form Genesis dozens of times, but now the words rose up before him with new and terrifying meaning. The nightmares he'd been having for over two weeks started to make sense, like an image projected on a screen slowly coming into focus. And then, unmistakably, a message. It is coming. Forty-one days. The awful deadline left Buddy frightened and confused. Speaking about what he knew would threaten his job, his family's security,...

Never in a million years did Lauren Greenwood think she would be destitute and without a penny to her name. But when her father mercilessly disowns her in the depths of winter, that is her fate. Now homeless, Lauren finds America in the devastating grip of the Great Depression--children run wild in the icy streets, endless queues for soup kitchens line frosty sidewalks, and desperation hangs in the air. All alone in the world, Lauren finds an orphanage...

On a visit to Cincinnati from rural Kentucky during the Great Depression, Aunt Millie impresses Kit with her money-saving cleverness. Includes information on life in America during the Great Depression.

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

"Ruthie Smithens, a girl who loves fairy tales and happy endings, doesn't mind being 'goffy Ruthie' if it makes her best friend, Kit Kttredge, smile and forget about the hardships of the Depression. But when Ruthie finds out that the Kittredges are going to be evicted from their house, she makes up her mind to help..."--Cover back.

The Great Depression has hit West Virginia hard. Men are out of work; women struggle to feed hungry children. Luckily, Nurse Becky Myers has returned to care for them. While she can handle most situations, Becky is still uneasy helping women deliver their babies. For these mothers-to-be, she relies on an experienced midwife, her dear friend Patience Murphy. Though she is happy to be back in Hope River, time and experience have tempered Becky's cheerfulness,...