NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE
“Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.”—People
“A tour de force of...

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and

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This award-winning documentary is a tool to help empower the extreme poor to take the first steps out of poverty. The film follows the story of four young friends who set out to live on just one dollar a day for eight weeks in rural Guatemala. They battle hunger, parasites and the realization that there are no easy answers. Yet, the generosity and strength of Rosa, a 20 year old woman, and Chino, a 12 year old boy gives them resilient hope that there...

Tells the story of a princess and a pauper who were worlds apart in lifestyles, yet identical in looks. When chance brings them together, it becomes the beginning of a great adventure and a friendship that will last a lifetieme. When Anneliese is captured, Erika must pretend to be the princess to help find out what has happened and to save the real princess. In the end, the magic of love and friendship triumphs and the kingdom is saved.

Beginning in 1977, Andrew Kolker and Louis Alvarez produced a series of half-hour documentaries about New Orleans' challenges called Being poor in New Orleans. The programs were broadcast on WGNO-TV (Channel 26) and produced under the auspices of NOVAC, the New Orleans Video Access Center. Presenting some of the first independent TV documentaries made in New Orleans, the series was a pathbreaking look at New Orleans' problems and raised a number of...

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge when strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents,...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of Unsheltered and Flight Behavior, a brilliant novel which enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity. "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with...

This is the author's story of starting middle school on the free lunch program. During the first semester in sixth grade, Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, this is a story of a more profound hunger - that of...

"Three of the nation's top scholars, known for tackling key mysteries about poverty in America, turn their attention from the country's poorest people to its poorest places. Based on a fresh, data-driven approach, they discover that America's most disadvantaged communities are not the big cities that get the most notice. Instead, nearly all are rural. Little if any attention has been paid to these places or to the people who make their lives there....

This companion book to the writer's Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother's legacy. In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, the writer's abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, he captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on - to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish,...