poverty

Twenty-one essays discussing various points of view on the state of poverty in the United States and globally.

Meggy Swann, a girl who walks with the aid of two sticks, arrives in Elizabethan London, along with her goose Louise, to stay with her father who really does not want her, and while he pursues his dream of transforming base metal into gold, Meggy undergoes a transformation herself.

Collects essays that examine the causes of prostitution from a variety of viewpoints.

Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.

Author Barbara Ehrenreich relates her experiences from 1998 to 2000, during which time joined the ranks of the working poor as a waitress, hotel housekeeper, cleaning woman, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart clerk to see for herself how America's "unskilled" workers are able to survive on only $6 or $7 an hour.

Deza Malone, the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana, accompanies her mother and older brother on a trip to find her father, an African American man who left to find work after the Great Depression hit. They end up in a Hooverville outside of Flint, Michigan, and her brother attempts to be a performer while Deza and her mother search for a home.

According to current statistics, about 40 million Americans currently live in poverty. These individuals face many challenges, from an inability to afford food and shelter to greater health problems due to lack of proper care and nutrition. The US government provides a variety of programs to help the poorest Americans. Yet people are divided on the best ways to address this social problem. The merits and drawbacks of various approaches are discussed in this book. The Contemporary Issues Pro-Con series is to give young readers a better understanding of major social issues today. Each book examines four key questions related to a controversial topic, with essays that detail the most commonly heard arguments on both sides of the discussion. The arguments contained within are supported by data from experts as well as nonpartisan reports, allowing to reader to make his or her own informed decision on the issue.

After her father's landscaping business fails and the family loses their house, sixth-grader Griselda Zaragoza follows her sister's example and begins selling Alma cosmetics while hiding her changed circumstances from friends.

"At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Cyril's son Danny and his older sister Maeve are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another.

During the Great Depression six-year-old Marvel, her seven siblings, and their mother find a tarpaper shack in the woods and, over the course of a year, turn it into a home. Based on the author's grandmother's childhood; includes historical notes.