Lucky by Rachel Vail

Not exactly a riches to rags story, but a riches to not-so-rich story.  Amazingly insightful writing about friendship dynamics in middle school.

Years ago we liked to imagine stuff together, adventures in her backyard or mine where we took turns being the tragically dying younger sister (she only has a younger brother) or back in time to prairie days (she'd been obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I couldn't get through at all; it just seemed like long stretches of weather punctuated by Pa making another chair).

The Trumpeter by Eric P. Kelly

I just discovered this 1928 Newberry Award winning book. What a jewel! Well-written and full of information about 15th century Krakow. I loved the following paragraph:

Not until then did he seek comfort and counself from his wife, who had always been his solace at such times; throwing himself down beside her on the wagon seat, he told her the story of his late discoveries, the absence of the king, the death of his kinsman. For a second the woman's heart quailed before the fresh difficulties, but she forgot self at the look in her husband's face. Her quiet reply, "We will wait, for God is in the waiting."