Non-depressing Finds: Book Recommendations on the Great Depression and Dust Bowl

You wouldn’t believe how hard it was for us to find just three books/series to recommend. There are a lot, and I do mean a lot of good books on the Great Depression and Dust Bowl eras. Ranging from biographies, autobiographies, historical fiction and nonfiction, we had to really consolidate to find three we liked the best.

            But we got our work done, and as promised here are some books we recommend you read.

The Listening Tree

Celia Barker Lottridge

When Ellen and her mother leave the family farm to go live with Ellen’s aunt in Toronto, Canada, Ellen can’t imagine things getting much worse.

With her father traveling around Canada in hopes of finding work, Ellen struggles to find the courage to make friends with the neighborhood children. Her shyness holds her back and instead, she passes her time reading and sitting in her Listening Tree, a large tree next to her window where she can hear the neighbor children play and talk. But when she overhears a sinister plan, Ellen must overcome her fears to help the family next door in a time of crisis.

Walk alongside Ellen as she comes to find that to have a friend, you must be a friend.

What we like about this book: It had such a realistic feel to it, like you were really there along with Ellen and feeling what she was feeling. The writing was wonderful, there was a plot twist and the characters draw you in as good, realistic people struggling during the Great Depression.

Age Range: 7-14. Little children may not understand it very well as its written for a more mature audience. 

Audience: Mainly girls. Yet it might keep the interest of a boy reader, too.

Cautions: Though we have read this book before, it has been a couple years and we don’t quite remember the entire story. Marin doesn’t recall any objectionable content though, so we’ll give it clear passage! Reader discretion advised in case we missed something in it that wasn’t appropriate. 

Era: 1930s

Special Notes: Unlike most books, which focus on America during the Great Depression, this book gives you a whole new perspective as the author focuses on what it was like in Canada during the Depression and Dust Bowl.

* Kit: an American Girl

Meet Kit

Kit Learns a Lesson

Kit’s Surprise

Happy Birthday, Kit!

Kit saves the Day

Changes for Kit

By American Girls Collection and Valerie Tripp

Enjoy a good time and some provoking thoughts as you get to know Kit Kittredge, a young girl growing up in the Great Depression.

After her father loses his job, nine-year-old Kit is forced to accept the changes that come over her family. Boarders come to live with them, kids tease her about being poor and her father tries without success to find a job to support his family. That’s not all! From chickens to her Aunt coming for a visit, to no electricity for Christmas and a hobo needing her help, Kit finds that, no matter how hard and hopeless life may seem, you have to keep on hoping that it will get better. And it will.

What we like about this series: As one of the earlier collections by the American Girl company, Kit delivers good, clean stories, adventure and is packed full of historical facts that are presented in a fun and easy way. The characters are memorable, the stories fast pace and Kit’s personality gives the books a special touch. 

Age Range: 8-14, though younger girls might like to have these read to them.

Audience: Girls.

Cautions: None.

Era: 1934-1935

Special Notes: None.

* There are more books in about Kit, but these are the ones that we have read.

Blue Willow

By Doris Gates

Her most prized possession was a plate of her great-great-grandmother's, but when worst comes to worst Janey has to chose what’s the most important to her.

Ten-year-old Janey Larkin can barely remember what her home in Texas was like. All she can remember was the dust and that they had to leave. Now in the San Joaquin valley in California, Janey is used to moving from town to town, wherever her father can get work. Because of this she chooses not to make friends, she hates having to say goodbye to them when she has to move on. But this summer is different, this summer she might actually have a permanent home in the valley, and friends like Lupe, the girl across the road.

Join Janey as she finds that hope can conquer all, even when life throws its meanest curveballs at you.

What we like about this book: The dialogue is lively and Janey’s way of thinking will bring a chuckle to many a reader. Her friends are loyal and add a special touch to the story, and Janey’s encounters with the main antagonist, Bounce Reyburn, though serious, can sometimes have a funny twist to them.

Age Range: 7-14

Audience: Though the main character is a girl, we think boys and girls would enjoy this book.

Cautions: None

Era: 1930s

Special Notes: This book really promotes the importance of friendship, no matter how often you move around, friends are worth making.

            Come back next week when Marin and I head to Washington to get some serious work done to help the Great Depression!

No Money and a Lot of Dust: The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl

            Imagine your life right now, in present day America. You might have heard your parents or other adults talk about how much unemployment there is, or how little good jobs there are. You might have even been told that money is tight and you can’t have that horse you wanted because it’s too expensive.

            Already, you can relate a little to the people during the 1930s. They too, didn’t have a lot of money and couldn’t afford things like cars, toys and sometimes even certain types of food.

            Add a lot of dust and no crops in the Midwestern states, and you’ve got yourself the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.

            From 1929 into the early 1940’s, money was tight and lots of men lost their jobs. If you read books about some of the kids growing up in those times, they remember wearing clothes made from chicken feed sacks and making their own toys out of whatever they found. Though it was awful how so many people were poor and without jobs, the Great Depression was also a time where families grew closer together and learned to stick through anything, no matter what.

A little boy holding a sign in front of a company, hoping to get his dad a job.

            What caused people to become so poor? Why wasn’t there a lot of money? Why was it called the Great Depression?

            For starters, let me give you a crash course on economics.

            Now before you turn your nose up at the thought, I’ll be the first to tell you that economics are an important part of learning history. As we learned in Panning for Trouble, where the Deputy tried to take Marin’s and my gold claim, money can be the root of all kinds of evil. And money is what fuels the economy.

            It began at the end of WWI. (Back then it was known as the Great War, WWII hadn’t happened yet so why would they call it WWI until the second one came along? Unless someone told them it was coming... Anyways back to the subject!) The United States emerged from the war as the biggest economic power in the world. We were well off and everyone had an extra dollar or two in their pocket. That’s because during the war the government had inflated money, which means they printed a lot of it to finance the expenses of the war. Now there was a lot of money around, so everyone had more than before.

            The banks came up with this great idea. Why not loan people money on this thing called credit and have them pay it back with interest? That way the banks could make more money and the people could buy what they wanted sooner.

            So that’s exactly what happened-during the “Roaring Twenties” people could loan money from the bank, buy a house or car and pay the bank back slowly when they could afford it. This went well for a while, until the stock market became the “in” thing to invest in. I won’t get into stocks, it’s really complicated and doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Let’s just say that you buy something like, oh, we’ll say cheeseballs. So you buy part of a share into a company making cheeseballs, and suddenly cheeseballs are what everyone eats. Because you paid the company to make cheeseballs they pay you back interest and you make more than you put into the business, because the Cheeseball Company is making a lot of money.

A newspaper that proclaims the great crash known as Black Thursday.

            That’s what a lot of people were doing, buying into things until prices soared. But, as the saying goes, “what comes up must come down.”

            And it did. To this day its known as Black Thursday, when the entire stock market came crashing down on October 29^th, 1929.

A week later all of the United States felt the effect of the crash. Banks that had invested the money people had put into their accounts closed-they lost everything in the stock market. People who’d bought things like cars and houses on credit suddenly couldn’t pay for it anymore, and companies closed. Men were out of the job and some families became homeless. It was a vicious cycle of several key factors: credit, stocks and debt.

            On top of all that a drought began in Arkansas in 1930. Pretty soon the dry winds and desert-like conditions spread to parts of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and even Colorado. They all began to experience horrific dust storms and no rain. Now the farmers were out of the job. Without rain they couldn’t grow food. And they couldn’t pay the rent.

            Hundreds of farming families left the areas affected by the Dust Bowl and headed to California, where it was heard that there was plenty of jobs in the “Golden State.” (Sound like another time period we just studied? Hmm…) What they found instead was a lot of sun and not as many jobs as they hoped.

            All over the United States families were affected by the Depression and Dust Bowl. What were they to do? How would they find jobs? Where would they raise their children? Parents were plagued by these questions and more as they struggled to raise their families. The children, on the other hand, only recall all the fun they had when they were younger. For a family night they might sit around the radio and listen to the Shadow or Lone Ranger, thrilled by the adventures of their favorite heroes. The kids amused themselves by creating games, from playing cowboys and Indians to creating toys out of wood and rocks. It was the parents that had the hardest time during the Depression, they did their best to shelter their children from the worries.

            That isn’t to say all families were sheltered, some kids watched as their fathers left to find work. Men would jump on trains and travel the USA to find jobs, earning the title hobos. Sometimes tragedy struck, when a train jumper might miss his mark and fall to his death. Mothers were left widowed and children were left fatherless. In all honesty it was an uncertain time for America.

            Believe it or not, the Depression also had a global affect, the entire world was suffering from unemployment and decrease of income. This actually led to the rising of dictators like Adolf Hitler, who got elected to be chancellor in Germany because he promised to end the Depression. As we all know, this would lead to greater consequences in the years to come.

Dust billowing towards the farms in the Midwest.

            How did America get out of this Depression? What was the turning point that got them back under their feet and men with jobs again?

            A couple of factors played into that. Though you might hear it was because of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, that wasn’t entirely true. It helped, but it didn’t end the Depression.

            When President Roosevelt was elected (more commonly known as FDR) he got to work creating government projects that gave men jobs. They then put these guys to work on projects like building the Grand Coulee Dam, highways and interstates as well as tree logging and forest clearing. The New Deal also provided money for the elderly, the disabled and children as well as paid farmers not to grow too many crops so that there would be enough jobs for everyone. Though there’s a lot of speculation as to if these choices were good long term, they did a good job helping at the time getting America out of the hole it had fallen into.

            The second big factor that got America out of the Great Depression was, sadly, WWII. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, soldiers were drafted, factories began producing planes and war materials and rationing brought the prices up again. The largest war on earth was to help get a lot of countries out of the bad economy they’d created for themselves.

            Though the Depression and Dust Bowl were a trying time on millions of people, they did help knit a closer relationship between families as they worked together to get out of the financial situations they found themselves in. That within itself without the trials is what helps us remember it today.

            Here’s something about the Depression and Dust Bowl you may not know!

            Have you ever sang the song This Land? You know, “This land is your land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York Island.” Yeah, that song. It was written by a guy named Woody Guthrie, who saw firsthand the trials and devastation families faced as they struggled to keep their children fed and find a place to live. You may have known that, but how many of you knew that Woody Guthrie was asked by the US Government to write a song about the Grand Coulee Dam? Well, he was, and he did write it! You can listen to the song, Grand Coulee Dam, here at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLZOKshJPs

Today in History:

           

            Join us next week when we give you some good ol’ historical fiction stories to read on the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. And believe us, there’s a lot of them!

The Unknown: Part Two

            *In the future, far, far away from Hawaii. Far away from Trevor and Marin, and far enough in the future that they’re unaware of what is taking place*

            To everyone, he was known only as the boss, or the Major. He had no first name, he had no last. In fact no one really knew what his name was, other than the Major. For the forty-five years he’d been serving to where he was now, there was only one name he’d been known by when he was promoted. The Major. His real name had been lost years ago, to the point that he wouldn’t realize someone had said his name when he heard it. No one knew it anymore, he was the Major.

            That is, he was the Major to everyone but a certain time traveler who had a bad habit of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. That man was the only one who knew his real name-and what he’d done.

            The Major sat at his desk and stared at his laptop. Enter Password, the message flashed, awaiting his secret code to get into the database. 

He merely fixed his eyes on the screen, his mind wandering elsewhere. Where is that dratted Trevor? Why can’t I smoke him out? The Major was used to having his way, he knew all the tactics to track someone down and find them. That’s why he’d been promoted at the young age of twenty-four, not two years since he’d joined the service. He could find anyone anywhere, his sharp mind could think like any criminal or lawbreaker. Trevor, on the other hand, was a different case. The Major couldn’t tap into his pattern or his logic, he couldn’t get his mind wrapped around what Trevor would do next. It was maddening, the search had been on for two weeks and not a single clue had been turned up. Where are you, Trevor? What am I not seeing?

            If there was one thing he knew, everyone leaves a trail. There is always a trail, no matter how cold or hard it is, it exists. Unlike the rest of the threats he’d tracked down for his country, Trevor’s trail was unique and well hidden. He knew it was there, he just had to figure out how to find it.

            Enter Password flashed again, jolting the Major out of his thoughts and back to reality. He leaned forward and tapped in the requested piece of information, then watched as the screen changed to the homepage of the division he belonged to. His sharp eyes instantly caught the tiny button on the right hand side of the screen, he had an email.

            Without much enthusiasm he clicked the icon and waited for the message to pop up. You maniac, how come you can hide from me? Why can’t I track you down? It didn’t help that his quarry was a time traveler-that alone made him a shadow that could pop up in any given time period. Still, you’d think there would be some documentation that would give him a clue as to where he’d gone. Something.

            The email loaded and the Major scanned the page. Regarding your request for more information on Project Thirty-six, we have turned up no new leads on Mr. Trevor Trekker… trash. It was nothing. Nothing. Another dead lead .

            “You trouble maker,” he growled under his breath, closing his inbox. “You fiend. I’ll bet you don’t even know I’m tracking you down, and yet you are able to perfectly conceal any trace of you. How do you do it?”

            He knew he wasn’t going to get any response, he had to find the answers on his own. If his men couldn’t turn up a lead it was time for him to get into the field. He had to find Trevor. He had to know where that time traveler was.

            If I was him where would I hide? He tried to reason. The Major had gone down this track many times before and each time had ended up at the same simple answer. Somewhere that hasn’t been discovered.

            “Doesn’t help much,” he muttered, then stood up and sighed. He’d run through a list of aliases they believed Trevor used. They’d checked on the story of Elizaveta Maklakov, but that didn’t bring them anywhere as far as Trevor’s case went. Her documentation that the Nazis had kept simply stated disappeared in bold letters, blaming it on the resistance for getting her out of Czechoslovakia.

            There was a trail. There was a trail that he couldn’t see and he had to find. If Trevor realized the information he possessed…

            His career would be over. He’d be jailed for life, probably put on death row. The Major couldn’t allow that to happen. It was the reason he’d worked so hard to convince the President Trevor was a danger to the American people. Why he’d insisted that the Scottish time trekker was meddling with historical events that could change the course of history, alter the outcome of wars and the constitution. If Trevor let anyone know about the information he’d obtained, it was goodbye Major and a good chunk of the CIA. Which reminded him, his boss was waiting for his response. He stared at his desk phone and bit his lower lip. This was a call he didn't want to make.

            The Major always liked to pretend he was the top of the pecking order. His men believed it, they couldn’t imagine anyone more menacing or harsh then himself. They didn’t realize he also had someone to report to, a man much more obscene and intimidating them he. A man who could easily dispose of the Major and get away with it, simply by a sentence or two.

            He had more power and influence then anyone could imagine, and he held that above the Major’s head. “If you get out of line, Major,” he’d say, a cutlass in hand as he twirled the weapon around, “you can be sure that some very important people will hear about the deed you’ve done to Harriet.”

            And of course that deed just happened to be in writing and in the possession of the carefree Scotsman, who had no idea he even had the evidence. Stupid man, the Major growled as he sat back down in his seat, how do you do it? How can you lead such a life where you’re so oblivious to everything around you and who might be lurking in the shadows, just waiting to stab you in the back? In a way he envied the man, he trusted that no one would harm him and if they tried he could escape. A life of freedom. Freedom the Major would never know or experience. His past wouldn’t allow it.

            The Major picked up the phone and punched a number in, then waited for the secretary to pick up. You could count on her answering, the man never answered any phone calls on his own. It would give the Major some time to think up what he was going to say.

            “Ah, Major, I’ve been waiting for your call.” The Major jolted and gulped down a yelp. Leave it to him to do the unexpected.

            “Yes, hello sir.”

            “How is it there in D.C? I hear you’ve had some good summer thunderstorms.”

            Why are we talking about the weather? Why doesn’t he get to the point? He answered anyways. “Fine, sir. Yes, we’ve had a couple of electrical storms, nothing to severe.”

            “I do love a good thunderstorm, I enjoyed them when I came stateside last August.”

            “Yes sir, nothing beats them.”

            “So, Major,” the tone of his boss had an edge of superiority, like he was rubbing it in that he could control the Major without having to outrank him. “How goes the search for the Scotsman time traveler? I’m impressed the CIA hasn’t leaked anything out about it, you know how eager the press would be to get a scoop on such a case.”

            The threat did not fall on deaf ears, the Major knew what he was implying to. “I have turned up no new leads, sir,” he admitted. “Though I have been doing my best.”

            There was a pause, then a slow chuckle. “I know. You’re not one to take this job lightly, I’m sure you’ve been turning up every stone and log you’ve come across in hopes of finding the man. I’d hate to hear what would happen to you if Trekker were to expose your past. I imagine it wouldn’t be very pretty.”

            “No, sir.”

            “Well I have news for you. I happened across an interesting article that you might want to check out. Look it up on the internet. Just type in Woody Guthrie Grand Coulee Dam, you might find some historical documents that would aid you in your search.”

            The Major put the phone on speaker and furiously typed in the words. He clicked Wikipedia and scrolled down the article, his eyes growing wide as he caught sight of a picture with the famed folk singer from the thirties. And it just so happened a man in a trench coat stood in the back, while an eleven-year-old girl sat in a seat near him. The picture was a bit blurred and hard to see, but even though they were wearing outfits to blend in the Major recognized them. Trevor and Marin.

            “I want you to find this time traveler as much as you do, Major. Now that you have a lead, I expect you to find a way to lure Trekker into the future and nab him and that little girl he’s adopted. But don’t harm them, no, don’t lay a finger on them.” He laughed again, then continued, “Take what you want from the man when you find him, but leave him to me. I’ve got a little surprise for our dear Scottish friend and his Czech sidekick.”

            Whatever his surprise was, the Major knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.

            Part three to come next month at the end of June!