Kentucky novel, of mingled humor and sentiment, about a plucky widow and her children who live in a struggling community along the railroad tracks.

Spanning five generations, the Scorta family saga begins in 1870 with Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, the bastard product of a rape and a notorious scoundrel. Burdened by a legacy of infamous crimes and forsaken loves, its lineage doomed to struggle, the Scortas nevertheless are blessed: with pride and a relentless faith in their own power. Their wealth lies in their memories and their collective belief in the pursuit of happiness. In a narrative both lyrical...

Presents Stephen Crane's 1893 novel about Maggie, a beautiful young tenement girl whose life takes a downward spin when she becomes involved with Pete; and features additional writings by Crane, including "George's Mother" and other Bowery tales, and a selection of New York journalism.

The Chinese immigrant experience, featuring a girl and her two brothers. The girl is a budding tap dancer, one brother is a weakling, the other a boxer who joins the U.S. Marines. The novel is set in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the years leading to World War II. The anti-Japanese hysteria is also seen through their eyes. A first novel.

When John Barton's wife dies, he is forced to raise his daughter, Mary, alone, while he grieves the love of his life. Though he is a hard-working man, John struggles to provide for his family. Realizing how unfair his financial situation is, John becomes very resentful towards the unethical distribution of wealth between the social classes. Against John's wishes, when Mary comes of age, she decides to help support their family by working in a dressmaking...

"Charles Dickens, struggling writer, is haunted by the ghost of his lost sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth. In his darkest Christmastime, she comes to him in visions to inspire his writing, to make him reflect on the pivotal moments of his life... and to spark the idea for one of the greatest Christmas stories of all time. Bonus, includes the original Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol." --

Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to.

"Drawing on the groundbreaking U.S. Financial Diaries project ... which follows the lives of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year, the authors challenge popular assumptions about how Americans earn, spend, borrow, and save-- and they identify the true causes of distress and inequality for many working Americans." --

"Born into poverty in southern New Jersey and raised in a commune of single mothers, Mary Anna King watched her mother give away one of her newborn sisters every year to another family. All told, there were seven children: Mary, her older brother, and five phantom sisters. Then one day, Mary was sent away, too. Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's...

"From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them...