poverty

Turning her back on her life of crime, a poor girl, recently off probation, hopefully enters a new school in a ritzy suburb for her senior year, but the registration fee causes her to consider breaking and entering with her professional mentor one more time.

Sixteen-year-old Hallie's romantic idealization of her minister leads her to volunteer work with the poor of New York City and some disillusioning encounters with reality.

A twelve-year-old street urchin and the son of Chicago's most important jeweler strike up an unlikely friendship in the days before the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and both are nearly trapped when the city goes up in flames.

Examines the impact poverty has on society as a whole, identifies its underlying causes, discusses how it is addressed by the government, and describes its impact on a person's mental health.

Authors present opposing viewpoints on questions involving poverty. Includes critical thinking skill activities.

To discover how others exist on minimum wage, the author leaves her home, takes the cheapest lodgings she can find, and accepts whatever jobs she's offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she works variously as a waitress, nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She learned many things, including the fact that one job is not enough: you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Rosy, a poor, eleven-year-old, half-Mohawk girl from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada enters an Anne of Green Gables look-alike contest in hopes of winning a set of Anne books, and gains a new friend and deeper understanding of Anne's character.

Growing up poor and neglected in post-World War II England, young Mick, longing to be part of a loving family as he is shuttled from home to home, must harden himself against disappointment and cruelty--and, finally, against the abusive father he only recently met.

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.