1932. “Dad and I clashed during the year, often and with greater anger as the hard times continue.” At 15 years old, Josh decided he had better hit the road rather than live with the conflicts at home. In the midst of the Great Depression, it was a harder road than he could have imagined. To complicate matters, his fragile younger brother Joey insists on running away with him. They get lucky for a while when a carnie takes them in, but the carnival falls on hard times, too. On their own, Josh and Joey struggle to survive in a harsh world.

This is an excellent book for middle school students who are studying the Great Depression. The characters are well developed and there are several strong minor characters. There is enough tension in the plot to keep young readers engaged. ( )

This book is about 2 boys that live in the Great Depression and runaway from home. they meet alot of nice people, get jobs, and run into alot of obsticles. HEART WARMING, SHEAD A TEAR IN MY EYE, SENT A MESSAGE. ( )

This was a pleasant read, and it was the book that kept me occupied while teaching at Huntington for the first time. It's a story of two boys hitting the road during the Great Depression, but then they find that it is harder than they could have guessed. There are several touching moments, and the story in general is somber, much like the mood of many people during the 1930s.

My biggest complaint about it is the dialogue... it doesn't sound real. But I'm very guilty of that myself--I used to try to make my dialogue just as poetic as some of my flowery prose, until someone pointed out, "...A teenage boy doesn't really talk like that..." so I've tried to make it more realistic ever since. Though the dialogue was indeed deep and pretty, I don't think a 15-year-old boy would talk like it, nor would the other characters. I'm not talking about the narrative, which is in first-person; I believe narrative, no matter the p.o.v., is free to be pretty. But dialogue, one tends to need to be more careful with word choice. That's my opinion, at least.

Still, a nice book. Not one of my favorites, but not one that was a waste of time. ( )