Awards

• Winner of ALA YALSA Award 2020

Overview

Instead of giving him lunch money, Rex's mom has signed him up for free meals. As a poor kid in a wealthy school district, better-off kids crowd impatiently behind him as he tries to explain to the cashier that he's on the free meal program. The lunch lady is hard of hearing, so Rex has to shout. Free Lunch is the story of Rex's efforts to navigate his first semester of sixth grade-who to sit with, not being able to join the football team, Halloween in a handmade costume, classmates and a teacher who take one look at him and decide he's trouble-all while wearing secondhand clothes and being hungry. His mom and her boyfriend are out of work, and life at home is punctuated by outbursts of violence. Halfway through the semester, his family is evicted and ends up in government-subsidized housing in view of the school. Rex lingers at the end of last period every day until the buses have left, so no one will see where he lives. Unsparing and realistic, Free Lunch is a story of hardship threaded with hope and moments of grace. Rex's voice is compelling and authentic, and Free Lunch is a true, timely, and essential work that illuminates the lived experience of poverty in America.

Full Product Details

9781324003601

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Reviews

What an amazing book. I don't think I have been that affected by a book since I read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas... -- Mary-Brigid Turner, Hodges Figgis Children's Department

Author Information

Rex Ogle is the author of Free Lunch, which won the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award; Abuela Don’t Forget Me, a finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award; Punching Bag; and the novel >When We Ride. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

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