Chicago Public Library Best Picture Books of 2021 Parents Magazine October 2021 Book of the Month A sensitive story about food insecurity. Molly and her mom don't always have enough food, so one Saturday they visit their local food pantry. Molly's happy to get food to eat until she sees her classmate Caitlin, who's embarrassed to be at the food pantry. Can Molly help Caitlin realize that everyone needs help sometimes?

How to focus anti-hunger efforts not on charity but on the root causes of food insecurity, improving public health, and reducing income inequality. Food banks and food pantries have proliferated in response to an economic emergency. The loss of manufacturing jobs combined with the recession of the early 1980s and Reagan administration cutbacks in federal programs led to an explosion in the growth of food charity. This was meant to be a stopgap measure, but the jobs never came back, and the “emergency food system” became an industry. In Big Hunger, Andrew Fisher takes a critical look at the business of hunger and offers a new vision for the anti-hunger movement. From one perspective, anti-hunger leaders have been extraordinarily effective. Food charity is embedded in American civil society, and federal food programs have remained intact while other anti-poverty programs have been eliminated or slashed. But anti-hunger advocates are missing an essential element of the problem: economic inequality driven by low wages. Reliant on corporate donations of food and money, anti-hunger organizations have failed to hold business accountable for offshoring jobs, cutting benefits, exploiting workers and rural communities, and resisting wage increases. They have become part of a “hunger industrial complex” that seems as self-perpetuating as the more famous military-industrial complex. Fisher lays out a vision that encompasses a broader definition of hunger characterized by a focus on public health, economic justice, and economic democracy. He points to the work of numerous grassroots organizations that are leading the way in these fields as models for the rest of the anti-hunger sector. It is only through approaches like these that we can hope to end hunger, not just manage it.

The autobiography of the early radical leader and her participation in communist, anarchist, and feminist activities

I, Emma Freke is a charming search-for-identity story about Emma—the only "normal" member of her quirky family. While Emma desperately tries to find her niche, she discovers that perhaps it's better to be her own "freak" than someone else's Freke.

In this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love. Written for the stage by Academy Award® nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.

'He is a Chekhov of our time: holding his characters with as much humanity, compassion, humor and love - but without holding back his scathing indictment of deeply entrenched, systemic injustices and inequities.' - David Schwimmer The Inequalities combines three plays from British author and director Alexander Zeldin into a trilogy that tells new stories of love, compassion and resilience for our time of austerity. Contextualised with an essay before each play and an in-depth interview with the author, Zeldin's three pieces present intimate stories of work, home and community in a radical form of realism. Written after extensive research across the United Kingdom, and involving people affected by the central themes of the plays, The Inequalities goes beyond social chronicle, achieving a timeless portrait of humanity under duress. This is theatre that goes behind the mirror of our time to reveal the core of the collective human experience of being alive. Beyond Caring: “This desolate, quietly intense devised drama gets under your skin and into your bones... unforgettable.” (The Times) LOVE: "Gripping, amusing, uncomfortable, desperately moving. Zeldin shows us friction...but also kindness and dignity and lots of love without turning sugary." (The Times) Faith, Hope and Charity: "This is that rare thing: a necessary play that suggests Zeldin has taken on the role of the Victorian Henry Mayhew in compassionately documenting the lives of the urban poor." (The Guardian)