self-reliance

Lydia Hawkins, a daughter of poverty living in the Appalachian Mountains, is sent to live with her uncle and aunt after her brother and grandmother die and her mother is unjustly jailed. Subjected to ridicule at her new school because of her homemade clothes, Appalachian accent, and her mother's incarceration, she is determined to overcome this and find a way to clear her mother's name.

Marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood--and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends meet matters much more than making it to college--smart, talented Marissa seeks comfort elsewhere when her home life becomes unbearable.

In late eighteenth-century Calcutta, half-Indian half-Irish Anila Tandy finds herself alone with nothing but her artistic talent to rely on, searching for her father who is presumed dead.

Fifth-grader Emma faces many unpleasant changes as her best friend prepares to move away, her father goes to Turkey for five months, and her mother starts college, but with the help of her great-aunt Grace, Emma becomes a lot more independent and self-reliant.

In rural Minnesota in 1974, thirteen-year-old Pride Star, raised to be independent, must accept help from friends and neighbors to care for eleven-year-old Nightingale and six-year-old Baby when her grandfather is hospitalized with a brain infection.

The love between two teen-age brothers helps to alleviate the harshness of their usually parentless life as they struggle to grow up.

With her parents' support, Jessica finds the strength and self-reliance to conquer a recurring bad dream.

When her brother goes off to school, Amanda finds new things to do, including ballet dancing, cleaning her room, and making a very sad, mad day go away, with the help of hugs from Mother Pig.

All the many things a young child can do independently are demonstrated, (tying shoes, riding bike, kicking ball), but there is one thing one cannot do alone.

Presents a discussion of the value of working with one's hands in order to connect intellect with the material world, and examines the divide between thinking and doing that began with the assembly line and can be bridged through self-reliance and concrete living.