Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis
Delacourt Press, 1999. 2000 Newbery Medal Honor
Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the
Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of
the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway
of Grand Rapids. Reading Level: 5.6; Accelerated Reader: 5.0
Describes the plight of the migrant workers who traveled from the Dust Bowl to California during the Depression and were forced to live in a federal labor camp and discusses the school that was built for their children. Reading Level: 6.5 Accelerated Reader: 6.8
Dust Bowl, by Therese De Angelis
Chelsea House, 2002
Chronicles the plight of farmers living in the Dust Bowl in the 1930s,
discussing the social upheaval that accompanied the loss of their livelihood
and the official programs and reforms enacted by the federal government
to help them. Reading Level: 8.1
Dust for dinner by Turner, Ann Warren.
HarperTrophy, 1995
Jake narrates the story of his family's life in the Oklahoma dust bowl
and the journey from their ravaged farm to California during the Great
Depression.
Reading Level: 2.8
Accelerated Reader: 2.4
A Long Way from Chicago: A Novel in Stories, by Richard Peck.
Dial Books for Young Readers, 1998
A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister
during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.
Reading Level: 4.2; Accelerated Reader: 5.0
Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse
Scholastic, 2000. 1998 Newbery Medal
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships
of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl
years of the Depression. Reading Level: Grades 4-8
Six Days in October, by Karen Blumenthal
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2002
A comprehensive review of the events, personalities, and mistakes behind
the Stock Market Crash of 1929, featuring photographs, newspaper articles,
and cartoons of the day. Accelerated Reader: 7.9
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2000
During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman. Reading Level: 5.2; Accelerated Reader: 4.5
