The Fourth of July delivers more than just the local display of fireworks for Samuel and Julia Wortham. They return from the festivities in Dearing, Illinois, to find Samuel's borther Edward, out of prison and on their doorstep. Surprise turns to shock and confusion as Edward introduces a young girl named Katie and declares that Samuel is her father. Samuel maintains his innocence and cannot understand why his brother would make up such a story, Julia...

After the tumultuous 1920s, the Stuart family and the rest of America must grapple with a terrible turn of events: the Great Depression. While grateful for what they have, the Stuarts have to watch carefully lest times get even harder. When Jerry Stuart goes to Hollywood to join Aunt Lylah, he becomes a stunt pilot. He is not prepared for the turn his life will take. And half a continent away, Uncle Pete is fighting to keep his struggling oil rig...

This charming, old-fashioned story of a girl growing up during the depression will convince you that anything is possible. Against a backdrop of authentic hardship and despair, 13-year-old Virginia Eade discovers the true source of happiness. A doctor's daughter, Virginia spends her days dreaming of romance with "the two Charlies"-Charles Lindburgh and Charlie Chaplin. Soon Virginia is forced to give up her room to less fortunate relatives, and failed...

Novel about the plight of American farmers who were forced off their farms by drought and foreclosure during the 1930's.

Sixteen-year-old Sydney hates to talk (or even think) about sex. She's also fighting a secret battle against depression, and she's sure she'll never have a boyfriend. When her classmate Paul starts texting and sending her nature photos, she is caught off guard by his interest. Always uncomfortable with any talk about sex, Sydney is shocked when her extroverted sister, Abby, announces that she is going to put on The Vagina Monologues at school. Despite...

During the Great Depression, rural Vermont suffers along with the rest of the country, and Henry Talcott, with only occasional work as a butcher, is reduced to moving into a tent on the edge of Black Pond with his two children. Their beautiful but unreliable mother has left them, and Henry is devastated by her desertion. He hasn't told Thomas or Margaret why she left-or if she will return. Told from twelve-year-old Thomas's perspective, The Lost...

This Edgar Award winner is "equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller" (Denver Post)-classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and most affecting form, with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee. It's 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow-moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in...

"When a rainmaker is bludgeoned to death in the pitch-blackness of a colossal dust storm, small-town sheriff Temple Jennings shoulders yet another burden in the hard times of the 1930s Dust Bowl."--

On a hot summer day in 1932, Andy Connors, who owns a garage that serves Route 66, finds himself in major trouble: He's been bitten by a rabid skunk.