Why read Listen?

Book cover of Listen

Book description

*WINNER! 2024 Oklahoma Book Award*

Stripped of opportunity by the Great Depression, educated and ambitious Liam takes a low-paying job with the Federal Writers' Project, assigned to collect stories of rural life for the Library of Congress in a hot, poverty-stricken Dust Bowl town in Oklahoma. He'll take his government…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Listen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gretchen McCullough

Author

What I loved about Listen was reading about the perspective of one character, who benefited from the Federal Writers’ Project, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal to help Americans during the Great Depression.

Liam doesn’t have a job and takes a job in a rural area in Oklahoma as part of the Federal Writers’ Project—his job is to listen to the stories of locals in the town and write them up as reports. The stories that Liam “collects” also give a reader a sense of how crushing the Great Depression was for many Americans.

An added twist to the story is…

From Gretchen's list on Gretchen McCullough's favorite books that describe the personal cost for many Americans during the Great Depression.