The Mighty Miss Malone

"We shared the kitchen and indoor bathroom with two other families and a teacher from Clark Elementary School. Our room was almost perfect. We had everything we needed, a table, two chairs, a wardrobe and a bed that had a big dip in the center.

Me and Mother would get up and fix breakfast. She'd go to her first job, check the post office on the way home int he afternoon, then take a nap. She'd be up when I got home from school, we'd chat, make supper and she'd go to her evening job at the hotel.

Since we had an address now, I wrote to Jimmie at general delivery in New York and Chicago. Maybe he'd answer. I could also check out books from the Library! After school I'd choose two, and since I wasn't doing very much studying, I could go home and read.

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Christopher Paul Curtis

Curtis writes novels for children and young adults with most of them set in his home-town of Flint, Michigan. He also edited the Scholastic 2010 collection of scary stories, Bites: Scary Stories to Sink Your Teeth Into.  Curtis has received the Coretta Scott King Honor and Award, the Newbery Honor and Award, the Jane Addams Peace Award, The Young Reader's Choice Award, The Parents Choice Gold Award, the Scott O'Dell Award and the Society of Children's Book Writers' Golden Kite Award for Fiction.

Synopsis

Deza's family faces great trials during the Depression and learns home is not a building or even a place. When Deza's father leaves Gary, Indiana to find work in Flint, Michigan it triggers many other losses for the family who do everything possible to stay together.

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Relevance

Being a young adult of color during the Great Depression was unlike anything most of our children experience today. And, yet, Deza's losses, the redemption her family experiences, and Deza's own grit will resonate with many teens during the pandemic.

Learning Connections

• Depression and World War II, PBS Learning Media
• Great Depression, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, recipient of the 2015 Curriculum Gold Award from the National Association of Economic Educators
• Travel During the Great Depression: Norman Rockwell and the Average American, TEEN Historians, New York Historical Society
  
• Joe Louis vs Max Schmeling, World Heavyweight Match II, ESPN Classic Sport, YouTube
• Negro League History, Negro League Baseball Museum

Young adult novel, 297 pages. With love and determination, twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie and their parents endure tough times during the Great Depression.