Poverty Fiction

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.

Desperate, driven, harassed to the breaking point, Slake decides to go underground into the sheltering depths of the New York City subway, where he ends up staying for 121 days. This is the story about survival, and about a 13-year-old misfit's attempts to find footing in a hostile and threatening world.

Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp.

At 12, Emily Parmenter is left mostly to herself after her mother disappears and her beloved older brother dies. Emily has built a life around the faded plantation where her remote father and hunting-obsessed brothers raise hunting spaniels. It is a meager, masculine world, but to Emily it has magic. And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled daughter of a truly grand plantation, who has run away from her hectic Charleston debutante season.

Shif has a happy life, unfamiliar with the horrors of his country's regime. He is one of the smartest boys in school, and feels safe and loved in the home he shares with his mother and little sister, right next door to his best friend. But the day that soldiers arrive at his door, Shif knows that he will never be safe again - his only choice is to run. Facing both unthinkable cruelty and boundless kindness, Shif bravely makes his way towards a future he can barely imagine. Refugee 87 is a story of friendship, kindness, hardship, survival, and - above all - hope.

For more than three decades, Jeffrey D. Sachs has been at the forefront of international economic problem solving. But Sachs turns his attention back home in The Price of Civilization, a book that is essential reading for every American. In a forceful, impassioned, and personal voice, he offers not only a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country’s economic ills but also an urgent call for Americans to restore the virtues of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity.

Georgie has no idea what to expect when she, Mama, and Peaches are plopped down in the middle of small-town USA - a.k.a. Bogalusa, Louisiana - where Mama grew up and Great Aunt Vie needs constant care. Georgie wants to help out at the once famous family diner that served celebrities like the Jackson 5 and the Supremes, but everyone is too busy to show her the ropes and Mama is treating her like a baby, not letting her leave her sight.

Twelve-year-old Zola thinks she has the perfect life. She thinks everyone does, now that it’s 2193, and humanity has solved all its problems. Insta-Closets deliver new clothes every morning, Insta-Ovens deliver gourmet meals on demand, and virtual reality goggles let her have any adventure she wants, with friends from all over the world. Then one day Zola finds a handwritten note in her Insta-Closet: If you want to see things as they really are, come find me. What if Zola’s wrong about everything—even the year?

Blue de la Cour has her life planned: hide the magic in her blood and continue trying to turn metal into gold so she can help her city’s homeless. But when her father is murdered and a cruel but powerful woman claims custody of Blue and her property, one wrong move could expose her - and doom her once and for all. The only one who can help? The boy she’s loathed since childhood: Prince Kellan.

Written by New York Times best-selling author Christopher Golden, Runaways is a fresh take on the Marvel fan favorite. This audiobook includes a bonus PDF with the first issue of the revived Runaways comic series written by Rainbow Rowell, with art by Kris Anka. It's easy for fans of the comics, fans of the new Hulu TV show, and first-timers to all enjoy this new take on an old classic.

The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas" - the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge.

It’s the first day of summer and Rachel's 13th birthday. She can't wait to head to the lake with her best friend, Micah. But as summer unfolds, every day seems to get more complicated. Her “fun” new job taking care of farm animals quickly becomes a challenge, and at home, her parents are more worried about money than usual. Fortunately, Rachel can count on Micah to help her cope with all the stress. But Micah seems to want their relationship to go beyond friendship, and though Rachel almost wishes for that, too, she can’t force herself to feel “that way” about him.

Intruder in the Dust is at once an engrossing murder mystery and an unflinching portrait of racial injustice. Set in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, it is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly arrested for the murder of Vinson Gowrie, a white man. Confronted by the threat of lynching, Lucas sets out to prove his innocence, aided by a white lawyer, Gavin Stephens, and his young nephew, Chick Mallison.

Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life - and that of her parents - all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No's presence forces Lou's family to come to terms with a secret tragedy.

Nory Ryan's family has lived on Maidin Bay on the west coast of Ireland for generations, raising a pig and a few chickens, planting potatoes, getting by. Every year, Nory's father goes away on a fishing boat and returns with the rent money for the English lord who owns their cottage and fields, the English lord bent upon forcing the Irish from their land so he can tumble the cottages and clear the fields for grazing.

“We have a secret the Devil and I.” These are the chilling words on the back of an old photograph that Sister Joan uncovers while cleaning out the attic storerooms. What she discovers among the dusty antiques leads to her most dangerous case yet. Joan has the strangest feeling that she's being followed. But the person she thinks she saw died over a year ago . . . Or did he? Then a young secretary turns up dead. She's been strangled. Another body is found and Sister Joan must get to the bottom of things before the murderer strikes again.

In The Skin I'm In, listeners saw into the life of Maleeka Madison, a teen who suffered from the ridicule she received because of her dark skin color. For decades fans have wanted to know the fate of the bully who made Maleeka's life miserable, Char. Now in Sharon Flake's latest and unflinching novel, The Life I'm In, we follow Charlese Jones, who, with her raw, blistering voice speaks the truths many girls face, offering insight to some of the causes and conditions that make a bully.

Rosario Gomez gave up gang life after his brother was killed in a street fight. Now all he wants to do is finish night school, be a good father and work hard enough at his job at the supermarket to get promoted. But when an old friend shows up to ask him why he left the gang, Rosario realizes he was fooling himself if he thought his violent past would just go away. When his pregnant girlfriend is hit in a drive-by shooting, Rosario has to make some hard choices. Revenge means a return to his old ways. But unless he takes action, his enemies won't rest until they've settled the score.

When 15-year-old Romeo's mother leaves one day and doesn't return, he finds himself homeless and trying to survive on the streets. Mute and terrified, his silence makes him vulnerable, and one night, he is beaten by a gang of other kids, only to be rescued by a boy who pledges to take care of him. Julian is barely two years older than Romeo. After running away from an increasingly violent home life, he makes some difficult choices and ends up selling himself on the street to survive. Taking care of Romeo changes him, gives him a purpose in life.

Poppy used to be an optimist. But after a photo of her dressed as Rosie the Riveter is mocked online, she's having trouble seeing the good in the world. As a result, Poppy trades her beloved vintage clothes for a feathered chicken costume and accepts a job as an anonymous sign waver outside a restaurant. As the summer unfolds, Poppy stops glorifying the past and starts focusing on the present. But just as she comes to terms with the fact that there is good and bad in everyone, she is tested by a deep betrayal.