Poverty Fiction

Lazarus "Laz" Weathers has always been shy, and his issue with stuttering when he speaks hasn't helped. Stuck in a Seattle trailer park, Laz finds baseball helps him escape from the world of poverty and drugs. When he gets an opportunity to pitch for the rich kids across town, he has a chance to get drafted by the major leagues. But playing for the other team means leaving behind his family, including Antonio, Laz's younger brother, who more and more, seems to be drawn to the dark world of the Jet City's drug ring.

Thelma and Louise gets remade in this powerful, darkly funny teen novel from acclaimed authors Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry. Two teenage girls who have had enough of the controlling men in their lives take their rage on the road to make a new life for themselves.

When Ari's mother died four years ago, she had two final wishes: that Ari and her older brother, Gage, would stay together always, and that Ari would go to Carter, the middle school for gifted students. So when eighteen-year-old Gage decided he could no longer live with their bossy guardian, Janna, Ari knew she had to go with him - even though she'd miss baking cookies with Janna and curling up to watch HGTV. What Ari didn't realize was that Gage didn't have an apartment yet.

Finally, Amira is 12. Old enough to wear a toob, old enough for new responsibilities. And maybe old enough to go to school in Nyala - Amira's one true dream. But life in her peaceful Sudanese village is shattered when the Janjaweed arrive. The terrifying attackers ravage the town and unleash unspeakable horrors. After she loses nearly everything, Amira needs to dig deep within herself to find the strength to make the long journey - on foot - to safety at a refugee camp.

Max Einstein is not your typical genius. She hacks the computer system at NYU to attend classes, builds inventions to help the homeless, and talks to Albert Einstein! (Okay, that's just in her imagination). But everything changes when Max is recruited by a mysterious organization! Their mission: solve some of the world's toughest problems using science. She's helped by a diverse group of young geniuses from around the globe as they invent new ways to power the farthest reaches of the planet. But that's only if the sinister outfit known only as The Corporation doesn't get to her first.

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.

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?

Inspired by a true story, The Bravest Among Us is Hillbilly Elegy meets Casablanca, the story of three unlikely heroes who come together in a tragic love triangle to bring The American Dream to reality for impoverished children. Aria, a grieving widow and once a teen mother, rises from humble beginnings to become a warrior for social justice. But which man will join her daring journey, the ambitious actor bent on capturing her heart or the wrongfully convicted ex-con sworn to protect her? One will risk everything to help her find hope, while the other will forsake his happiness for the ...

Caitlin can't afford to leave this dreamland, this half-sleeping state where everything and everyone can be kept at arm's length. Because then she'd have to face the ugly truth about her relationship with Rogerson: magnetic, fascinating--and very dangerous--Rogerson. What is it about Rogerson Biscoe...and why can't she leave him?

Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn't used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother. Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame.

In an unnamed Third World country, in the not-so-distant future, three “dumpsite boys” make a living picking through the mountains of garbage on the outskirts of a large city. One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences.

A small prison cell in India holds an 18-year-old penniless waiter from a Mumbai slum. But Ram Mohammad Thomas isn't a criminal. He is under arrest for correctly answering 12 tricky trivia questions on the show Who Will Win a Billion? Reluctant to part with the jackpot of one billion rupees, the show directors bribe the police to arrest Ram, accusing him of cheating.

In depression era America, 1933, three men become unlikely friends on the hobo trail after being accused of crimes they didn't commit.

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.

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.

The Cripple Creek Mining District Series is a fact-based accounting of the discovery and early development of the gold fields in and around Cripple Creek, Colorado. Poverty Gulch tells the true story of how that gold was first discovered. History tells us that the town started out as nothing more than a small scattering of false-fronted structures that was initially known as Fremont. During its heyday, at the turn of the century, some folks say it had grown to right around fifty-thousand hardy souls. It lies nestled in a picturesque little valley that is located in the central Colorado ...

From one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers comes a novel of extraordinary power about family life - the greatest human drama - and the cost of war. Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer’s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the “notifiers” who might darken her door with the worst possible news.

One of Barbara Ehrenreich's most classic and prophetic works, Fear of Falling closely examines the insecurities of the American middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the last two decades of the 20th century. Weaving finely-tuned expert analysis with her trademark voice, Ehrenreich traces the myths about the middle class to their roots, determines what led to the shrinking of what was once a healthy percentage of the population, and how, in its ambition and anxiety, that population has retreated from responsible leadership.

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.

Red’s inexplicable power over the wind comes from her mother. Whenever Ruby "Red" Byrd is scared or angry, the wind picks up. And being placed in foster care, moving from family to family, tends to keep her skies stormy. Red knows she has to learn to control it, but can’t figure out how. This time, the wind blows Red into the home of the Grooves, a quirky couple who run a petting zoo, complete with a dancing donkey and a giant tortoise. But just when Red starts to settle into her new life, a fresh storm rolls in, one she knows all too well: her mother.