Hard Times On the Way to Wonderful: The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

"We are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful."

A funny thing happened on the way to Wonderful for the optimistic Malone Family. "And they lived happily ever after..." is the way the smart and self-confident eleven-year-old Deza thinks all stories should end. Sure, they live in a rented, furnished apartment in Gary, and sure, Jimmie hasn't grown a fraction of an inch since he was twelve, and sure, her beloved teacher tells her her excellent writing is a "credit to her race," but her mom and dad have jobs and Deza has a best friend, and although short, Jimmie is the best singer in the world, and they all believe that they are on their way to "wonderful." Jimmie is even sure that Joe Lewis is going to win his upcoming bout with Max Schmelling.

But it's 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression, and it looks like their "happy-ever-after" is not happening for the Malones. First, Father is laid off at the Gary, Indiana, steel mill, and when he goes out to catch some fish for the table with friends, he is seriously injured and goes missing for days. The strong and witty Father who loved alliterative language and doted on his "Dear Darling Daughter" comes back at last, missing many teeth and most of his hope and love of life. Then, when Mother loses her housekeeping job when the local banker's wife falls on hard times herself, Father tells them all that he's going back to find a job in his hometown, Flint, Michigan. But when no letters or money follow as promised, the Malones are evicted from their home by a landlord who wants to rent the space to two families who will pay more.

The family has few belongings and only a few dollars left, with not even bus fare to Flint, where Father's mother lives, so they finally decide that they will have to stow away in a railroad boxcar heading that way. Grandma Malone is nowhere to be found there, and the Malones are forced to live in a Hooverville shanty town outside town. The camp boss, Stew, is rough but kind, and a traveling harmonica player hears Jimmie sing and talks him into heading to Detroit with him, promising a job in a speakeasy there.

Then their camp is suddenly raided and shut down, and Deza and her mother find themselves truly homeless. But a kind-hearted woman lets them sleep on her floor, Mrs. Malone finds some part-time jobs, and Deza manages to enroll in school, where she discovers that, unlike her school in Gary, "colored" children in Flint never make grades above C. Wonderful is looking further and further down that  road.

And then Deza hears that her brother has become the famous Little Jimmy Jones, a popular nightclub singer, and she heads for Detroit to try to find Jimmie and maybe Father, too. Nothing stops the Mighty Miss Malone, the name her father gave her, and Deza does what she has to do.

The winner of several Newbery honors, Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, Bud, Not Buddy and Elijah of Buxton, deftly returns to the well of African-American history for his story of The Mighty Miss Malone (Wendy Lamb/Random House, 2012).  Deza is indeed a mighty spirit, a girl whose upbeat intelligence and steady loyalty to her family just has to find that happy-ever-after, even if she can't really believe in fairy tale endings anymore. In the hands of a master of characterization and storytelling, Deza shines through the Depression decade, a credit to the human race, or as Holden Caulfield put it so well, "with all her f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact." As School Library Journal says, "Curtis does not sugarcoat reality and focuses instead on the resilience of a memorable character. An absorbing read."

Hard Times: R My Name Is Rachel by Patricia Reilly Giff

It's rent day. I pull on my wrinkled Sunday dress. I must have grown when I wasn't looking.

My good shoes are under the bed. I pull them on. My feet have grown, too.

I talk to myself all the way to town, talk out loud, using the most persuasive voice I have. This has to work. Otherwise--

Never mind otherwise.

The real estate man sits with his feet up on the desk. Who's buying a farm now? Who's even renting?

"I want to talk to you about our farm," I say.

"We don't have the money just now." Every word is pulled out of me.

Twelve-year-old Rachel used to be happy. She liked their snug apartment in the city. She loved her school and little local library that kept her in books. She loved their family friend, Miss Mitzie, who invited her into her cozy flower shop and gave her sweet hot tea and her warm friendship. She even loves Clarence, the cranky stray cat whom she feeds every day with scraps from Charlie the butcher.

But then the Great Depression settles like a cold fog over their lives. Her father’s bank job ends with the closure of the bank. He finds another job open in another state, but that means the family–Rachel, ten-year-old Cassie, and nine-year-old Joey–must leave the place they’ve always known as home and move to a farm a long way for everything they love.

Their old truck loaded with everything they own, the family sets off over the wintry roads–but not before Rachel, with the surprising collusion of the usually non-cooperative Cassie, manages to catch Clarence the cat and take him along.

The family finds the farm an overwhelming disappointment–no electricity or water, peeling paint, holes in the roof, cobwebby and full of mice–and in the confusion of arrival, Clarence escapes into the woods. And in short order things get worse. A heavy snowstorm blocks the road to town on Pop’s first day at work, and by the time he is able to walk to town, dressed in his best gray suit and red silk tie, the job has been given to someone else. The only work Pop can find is in a grocery, working only for handouts of vegetables too old to be sold. And to Rachel’s dismay, the two-room community school and library are closed for lack of funds.

Then Pop hears of work with the Mr. Roosevelt’s WPA. But it’s far away, on the Canadian border, and he’ll have to be away for at least two months, leaving the children on their own. For over a month, they hear nothing from Pop, no letter telling them where he is, and no letter with money to make the rent. As the oldest, Rachel knows she has to find some way to keep them going with food to eat and a roof over their heads.

Just released in its 2012 paperback edition, Newbery author Patricia Reilly Giff’s R My Name Is Rachel (Random House, 2011) tells a story all too familiar to many of us whose families, my own included, faced similar tough times during the Great Depression. Rachel keeps her siblings together as best she can, even walking miles to town each day to work in a store for hours in exchange for packets of seeds to plant their garden. Only her own resilience and the letters that come from Miss Mitzie give her the strength to keep going. Despite the family’s struggles, R My Name Is Rachel is a hopeful story that emphasizes both self reliance and the value of human connections and mutual assistance.

Says Publishers Weekly, “Rachel's searing, present-tense narrative exposes her fears, determination, and hopefulness in the face of wrenching challenges. Recurring motifs——color, flowers, and drawings by a neighbor that Rachel discovers in unlikely places——add lyricism to this story of family solidarity.”