A searingly candid look at growing up "without," edited by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Children of Crisis series. In a land of seemingly endless plenty, Growing Up Poor offers a startling and beautiful collection of stories, poems, and essays about growing up without. Searing in their candor, understated, and often unexpectedly moving, the selections range from a young girl's story of coming of age in the slums of New York at the turn of the twentieth century and a southern family's struggles during the Depression, to contemporary stories of urban and rural poverty by some of our foremost authors. Divided into four thematically organized sections (on the material circumstances of poverty, denigration at the hands of others, the working poor, and moments of resolve and resiliency), the book mixes the work of experienced authors--many of whom write autobiographically about poverty they have experienced first-hand--with the work of students and other contemporary writers. Edited and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist Robert Coles, Growing Up Poor gives eloquent voice to those judged not by who they are, but by what they lack. Contributors include: Sherman Alexie Dorothy Allison Raymond Carver Sandra Cisneros Ralph Ellison Richard Ford Langston Hughes Zora Neale Hurston Luis Rodriguez Betty Smith Gary Soto Mildred Taylor Sylvia Watanabe William Carlos Williams

Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist, Pultizer Prize-winning author, and professor at Harvard Medical School. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he lives in Concord, Massachusett Randy Testa has taught literature and medical ethics at Harvard University and Dartmouth Medical School Michael Coles is a writer and photographer and has taught and coached inner-city children