Engaging, very informative book about the Great Depression written for children ages 9 and older. The author clearly describes the causes and impact of the Great Depression on men, women, and children of all classes but in particular the poor and working class. Notably strong is her description of the suffering of migrant families and people who lived in the dust bowl. The author balances our understanding of the hardships experienced with a robust sense of how individuals and families supported and helped each other.

My mother was born in February of 1929, so I heard many, many stories of the Great Depression while I was growing up. Her father died when she was only 8 years old in 1937, which made her stories of hardship that much more poignant and sad. I heard stories like having only one notebook of paper for the whole school year (written in first very lightly, no skipped pages or lines, then turned upside down and written in more darkly) to being so ashamed that she had to wear her older brother's jeans for gym class (they zipped up the front, not the side, so everyone knew the jeans were her brother's), to working a before-school job starting at 5 am and an after-school job going until 9 pm each night from the ages of 12-16, to having nothing but turnips to eat all one winter because their other crops failed. Heartbreaking, and yet so triumphant. It helped me understand so much about my mother.

This book will help kids now who may not have such first-hand access to stories of the Great Depression. As I teacher, I especially liked the cross-curricular activities that help cement the ideas in kids' brains and help them appreciate how so many factors intertwine to affect a culture.

I gratefully received this book for free from the author, the publishers, and NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.