Below you will find print and digital titles about poverty in our SHS Learning Commons collection and the Libby collection from the Scott County Library.
What Beauty There Is
by
Jack Dahl, 17, desperately tries to protect his younger brother Matty from being taken away from him after his mother dies. Fleeing into Idaho's cold mountains, Jack begins a desperate search for drug money hidden by his father before his arrest. On his trail is his father's ruthless partner, Victor Bardem, who will stop at nothing to get the money for himself.
It's Trevor Noah: Born A Crime
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This fascinating memoir blends drama, comedy, and tragedy to depict the day-to-day trials that turned a boy into a young man. In a country where racism barred blacks from social, educational, and economic opportunity, Trevor surmounted staggering obstacles and created a promising future for himself, thanks to his mom's unwavering love and indomitable will.It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime not only provides a fascinating and honest perspective on South Africa's racial history, but it will also astound and inspire young readers looking to improve their own lives.
Hillbilly Elegy
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Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
Don't Fail Me Now
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African American teen Michelle cares for her two siblings in urban Baltimore while their mother is in jail. Leah and her stepbrother Tim, both white, live in a middle-class suburb of Maryland. Michelle and Leah share the same father who abandoned them--Buck Devereaux. When the two learn Buck is dying, the whole group embarks on a road trip to California to see him one last time.
Free Lunch
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The author reveals the humiliation that came with the daily outing of his family's hunger and poverty in sixth grade when he had to announce that he participated in his school's free lunch program. While constantly hungry, Ogle also recounts how much he craved the love of family in the face of his parents' abuse and brutality.
Hold Tight, Don't Let Go
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In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Nadine goes to live with her father in Miami while her cousin Magdalie, raised as her sister, remains behind in a refugee camp, dreaming of joining Nadine but wondering if she must accept that her life and future are in Port-au-Prince.
The Glass Castle
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An autobiography of writer Jeannette Walls who grew up in a creative but dysfunctional family. During Walls' early life her family moved among Southwest desert towns and camped in the mountains, while her alcoholic parents spent time painting and writing rather than feeding their family. Later the family settled in a West Virginia mining town where the children had to fend for themselves until they found the resources to leave home.
Maid
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The author shares moments from her life as she found herself unexpectedly pregnant and struggling to make ends meet while still holding onto her hopes of attaining a college degree and becoming a writer. Sharing insight into life below the poverty line through her own struggles as a low-income single mother, the author offers an eye-opening glimpse into the meager hope offered to those who must rely on government assistance to survive even as they work themselves to a state of exhaustion with little respect, inadequate compensation, and only their hope and determination to keep them putting one foot in front of the other.
A Quantum Life (Adapted for Young Adults)
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Born in New Orleans in extreme poverty, James Edward Plummer nevertheless was gifted with a brilliant mind. By the fourth grade, he was reading through textbooks on his own and feeling impatient with how slow the material was being covered in class. An unstable home life, though, led to moving to many different homes throughout his childhood, and dealing with economic and social pressures to become involved in crime and drugs. A self-described "gansta-nerd," James continued his education through high school and college, but wrestled with freeing himself from addiction to drugs. When he was accepted into the prestigious Physics PhD program at Stanford University, James was mentored by the sole Black professor in the department, eventually getting clean, changing his name to Hakeem Muata Oluseyi to honor his African ancestry, and fulfilling his dream to be a scientist.
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
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A collection of poems celebrating and remembering the author's beloved abuela, grandmother, who, while he was growing up, was the only source of happiness and comfort in his life of poverty and domestic abuse. When his grandma began to become forgetful, even forgetting him in the middle of their conversations sometimes, the author began writing his sorrow and memories in little snippets, then in the poems that became this book.
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
by
A collection of poems celebrating and remembering the author's beloved abuela, grandmother, who, while he was growing up, was the only source of happiness and comfort in his life of poverty and domestic abuse. When his grandma began to become forgetful, even forgetting him in the middle of their conversations sometimes, the author began writing his sorrow and memories in little snippets, then in the poems that became this book.
