We the People Bookshelf

Impoverished Vermont farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s. She was no better than a slave, Lyddie thought. The debt-ridden farm had been let to a neighbor, and she and her brother had been hired out. Was the end really near, as their mother had said when she fled with the babies after the hungry bear had broken into their Vermont farm house?

When Sheldon Russel Curtis told his story to his daughter; Rosa, she kept every word in her heart and was to retell it many times. I will tell it in Sheldon's own words as nearly as I can. He was wounded in a fierce battle and left for dead in a pasture somewhere in Georgia when Pinkus found him. Pinkus' skin was the color of polished mahogany, and he was flying Union colors like the wounded boy, and he picked him up out of the field and brought him to where the black soldier's mother; Moe Moe Bay, lived. She had soft, gentle hands and cared for him and her Pink.

At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice.

When we first meet Charlie he is about to embark on a compelling but dangerous journey from retardation to genius. He has only a vague understanding of what will happen, but he is aware that knowledge and the ability to write are of paramount importance. So he does not hesitate to cooperate in a radical experiment designed to increase his intelligence, the key-he hopes-to being valued as a human being and to be loved.