Socioeconomic

By Susin Nielsen

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Note: This story is geared towards upper elementary and middle school, but I thought it was important to include.

 

A middle-grade story about family, friendship, and growing up when you're one step away from homelessness.

 

Twelve-and-three-quarter-year-old Felix Knutsson has a knack for trivia. His favorite game show is Who What Where When; he even named his gerbil after the host. Felix's mom, Astrid, is loving but can't seem to hold on to a job. So when they get evicted from their latest shabby apartment, they have to move into a van. Astrid swears him to secrecy. He can't tell anyone about their living arrangement, not even Dylan and Winnie, his best friends at his new school. If he does, she warns him, he'll be taken away from her and put in foster care.

 

As their circumstances go from bad to worse, Felix gets a chance to audition for a junior edition of Who What Where When, and he's determined to earn a spot on the show. Winning the cash prize could make everything okay again. But things don't turn out the way he expects.

By Stephanie Ledyard

Home Is A Window Read Aloud

 

A family learns what home really means, as they leave one beloved residence and make a new home in another.

 

Home can be many things—a window, a doorway, a rug…or a hug. At home, everything always feels the same: comfortable and safe.

 

But sometimes things change, and a home must be left behind.

 

Follow a family as they move out of their beloved, familiar house and learn that they can bring everything they love about their old home to the new one, because they still have each other. This heartfelt picture book by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard is richly illustrated by former Pixar animator Chris Sasaki.

By Marcy Campbell

Adrian Simcox Does Not Have A Horse Read Aloud

 

 

Adrian Simcox tells anyone who will listen that he has a horse--the best and most beautiful horse anywhere.

 

But Chloe does NOT believe him. Adrian Simcox lives in a tiny house. Where would he keep a horse? He has holes in his shoes. How would he pay for a horse?

 

The more Adrian talks about his horse, the angrier Chloe gets. But when she calls him out at school and even complains about him to her mom, Chloe doesn't get the vindication she craves. She gets something far more important.

By Matt De La Peña

Last Stop On Market Street Read Aloud

 

 

CJ begins his weekly bus journey around the city with disappointment and dissatisfaction, wondering why he and his family can't drive a car like his friends. Through energy and encouragement, CJ's nana helps him see the beauty and fun in their routine.

This beautifully illustrated, emotive picture book explores urban life with honesty, interest and gratitude.

By Lenore Look, Illustrated By Stephen T. Johnson 

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Katie loves to show her grandma how to dress a Barbie...and GninGnin loves to show Katie how to make rice dumplings. More than anything, Katie longs to go with GninGnin to work, to crack a mountain of crabs alongside her at the crab cannery.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked -- "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" -- she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story -- based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother -- is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.