"A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor--these form a series of events that change the orphan Pip's life forever, as he abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens's novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the...

In Lives on the Line, Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and J. Lawrence Aber meld affecting personal profiles with sophisticated demographic analysis to create a vivid portrait of what life is like for more than 14 million American children growing up below the poverty line.In personal profiles of ten families across the nation, from a Pacific Islander family in Hawaii to a homeless family in a wealthy New York City suburb, award-winning journalist Martha...

"A distinctive new voice: Rex Ogle's story of starting middle school on the free lunch program is timely, heartbreaking, and true. Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day...

These are hard times in the Quad Cities, a great American crossroads along the border of Iowa and Illinois, where the Mississippi River intersects Interstate 80. It's home to John Deere manufacturing and the nation's breadbasket. But it's also an area deeply scarred by the Recession. FRONTLINE spent months following three young girls who are growing up against the backdrop of their families' struggles against financial ruin.

This 10th anniversary edition of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller includes a new introduction and afterword by the author. Chronicling the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy that began with one small gesture of kindness, this is a "ray of hope for a better future, as well as an assurance that love is a stronger force than injustice and inequality" (Sybrina Fulton, mother of Travyon Martin...

Profiles three young girls and their families living in poverty in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, a part of the U.S. hard hit by the economic downturn that began in the late '00s.

"A literary discovery: an extraordinary account, in the tradition of The House on Mango Street and Angela's Ashes, of a Colombian woman's harrowing childhood. This astonishing memoir of a childhood lived in extreme poverty in Latin America was hailed as an instant classic when first published in Colombia in 2012, nine years after the death of its author, who was encouraged in her writing by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Comprised of letters written over...