Great Depression

Sweet Home Alaska

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Copies: 6

Terpsichore and her family are going to be pioneers in Alaska! Times have been tough in Wisconsin during the Great Depression, and she's eager to make a new start. Terpsichore has often dreamed about living like Laura Ingalls Wilder, but the reality of their new home is a shock. The town is still under construction, the mosquitoes are huge, and when a mouse eats her shoelace, causing her to fall on her first day of school, everyone learns the nickname she had hoped to leave behind: Trip.

Author:

Carole Estby Dagg

Lexile:

870L

Of Mice and Men (Unabridged)

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This classic novel tells the tale of an unusual friendship between two very different men: the mentally challenged and sometimes violent Lennie, and his loyal yet reluctant caretaker George. Finding comfort in one another's company, George and Lennie travel from farm to farm looking for work in pre-Depression Salinas Valley, California.

Author:

John Steinbeck

Grade Level:

High

Lexile:

630L

Length:

06:23

Water for Elephants (Unabridged)

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An atmospheric tale of life and love in a Depression-era traveling circus.

Author:

Sara Gruen

Grade Level:

High

Lexile:

730L

Length:

11:27

Esperanza Rising (Unabridged)

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Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama's position and presiding over all of El Rancho de las Rosas.

Author:

Pam Munoz Ryan

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

750L

Length:

04:45

A Year Down Yonder (Unabridged)

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Mary Alice and Grandma Dowdel return for more astonishing, laugh-out-loud adventures when 15-year-old Mary Alice moves in with her spicy grandmother for the year. Her extended visit is filled with moonlit schemes, romances both foiled and founded, and a whole parade of fools made to suffer in unusual (and always hilarious) ways.

Author:

Richard Peck

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Lexile:

610L

Length:

03:25

Magic Tree House #36: Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Unabridged)

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Jack and Annie are off on another Merlin Mission. This time, Merlin has sent them to rescue a beautiful, magical creature, the unicorn. But when they land in New York City during the Depression of the 1930s, Jack and Annie are confused. Where will they find a unicorn in a big city? And what about the blizzard that's burying New York in snow?

Author:

Mary Pope Osborne

Grade Level:

Primary

Elementary

Lexile:

570L

Length:

01:17

Magic Tree House #36: Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Unabridged)

Bud, Not Buddy (Unabridged)

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It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and 10-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him. One: He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. Two: He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.

Author:

Christopher Paul Curtis

Grade Level:

Elementary

Lexile:

950L

Length:

05:15

The Great Depression (2005)

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The stock market crash in 1929 alarmed investors and signaled hard times spreading beyond the farms. The causes and effects on Americans, and why Hoovers administration seemed unable to deal effectively with the crisis are analyzed.

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

00:30

The Great Debaters

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Inspired by real events, the fascinating The Great Debaters reveals one of the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement in its story of Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington in a captivating performance) and his champion 1935 debate club from the all-African-American Wiley College in Texas. Tolson, a Wiley professor, labor organizer, modernist poet, and much else, runs a rigorous debate program at the school, selecting four students as his team in ’35, among them the future founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker).

Director:

Denzel Washington

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

02:04