Wonderfully written story set in the Great Depression. Danny Garvey's father must leave his family in NYC in order to go try to find work. Danny becomes the man of the house at the age of 14 while still trying to keep up with school, shoeshine business, and his growing fondness for the girl next door.
Interesting characters fill the story with love, anger, despair, and hope. ( )

We first meet Danny Garvey and his family in October of 1932 at the height of the Great Depression. The Garvey family lives in a tenement building in New York City and while they are still able to pay for food and shelter it is becoming more difficult with each passing day. Mr. Garvey has been without a job for a quite some time and it is Mrs. Garvey who takes in laundry and works round the clock to keep her children (Danny and his baby sister Maureen) fed and clean. Finally, Mr. Garvey decides to leave home in search of work and it is with great misgivings all around that he sets out promising both Danny and his Ma that he would return for Christmas. The story follows Danny as he bears witness to the hardships that the Garvey family and their friends and neighbors endure during one of America’s darkest eras. But it’s not all sadness as the reader follows the joy that Danny and his family find in the smallest of things: a clean bed, a bowl of oatmeal, a box of hoarded childhood treasures, earning a nickel for a giving a shoe shine, and a baby’s smile.

The story is told by Danny and leads the reader through the hardship and despair that was prevalent during the time yet offers hope for the characters’ future in the newly elected President Roosevelt’s New Deal. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry as you become friends with the Garveys and their neighbors the Rileys. And you’ll swear you can smell the food cooking in the hallways of the tenement building where they live.

A realistic, well researched story based on the author’s own family stories. I highly recommend this story for young adults or for anyone interested in the economic history of the United States ( )

This historical fiction book is about a young boy who is forced to grow up really quickly because of the Great Depression. When his Father must leave in search for work, the young boy must work around the house in order to help save his family. The adventures and troubles this boy face throughout the story will show students how children were affected by the Great Depression.

good

This is a tale set in 1932, during the Great Depression. Danny Garvey is 13, the son of Irish immigrants, living in New York City. His father has been out of work for a while and, in desperation, decides to go on the road to look for work. Danny is left to face the day to day struggles of life, along with his mother and baby sister (And neighbors and friends and classmates....) as they long for his father's return by Christmas. My main complaint with the story is that the author pulls in too many elements of the poverty of the Great Depression. Through some of the supporting characters Danny gets a glimpse of a Hooverville, the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, begging, scamming, theft, welfare and the like. Maybe people really did experience that much in their individual lives, but I'm skeptical. Still it was an engaging and enjoyable read. The characters may be a bit flat, but the good guys are charismatic and the love they exude seems genuine. And if that doesn't make for good reading, what does?
--J. ( )