A timely read now with the current recession. This book focuses on small town life during the late 1930s and the Great Depression in the mid-west. When her father loses his job and the family has to downsize, Mary-Alice is sent from Chicago to live with her grandmother in a small rural town. 
 "Grandma, the law's afraid of you. You'd grab up that shotgun from behind the woodbox if the sheriff came on your place." 
 Read alikes: The Exiles by Hilary McKay, Listening for the Crack of Dawn by Donald Davis