Orem Library

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India's independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable,...

An impoverished New York youngster becomes heir to his titled grandfather's British estate.

Explores what life was like for children, both rich and poor, in Victorian Great Britain.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this lush retelling of Dickens' classic coming-of-age story with colorful characters: conspirators, rogues, rakes, and wretches.

Two novels depict the struggles of virtuous boys to overcome poverty and achieve success and respectability.

"A distinctive new voice: Rex Ogle's story of starting middle school on the free lunch program is timely, heartbreaking, and true. Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day...

This treasured historical satire, played out in two very different socioeconomic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, the two realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange clothes and roles--a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. The Prince, dressed...

Profiles three young girls and their families living in poverty in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, a part of the U.S. hard hit by the economic downturn that began in the late '00s.