The Not-So-Great Depression

"This is also about family finances and difficulties but it’s linked to the current financial crisis. So there is a bit of an explanation about how the US got into trouble, with people taking out mortgage loans on which they could not sustain the changing interest payments, and how banks got into trouble because people weren’t paying back their mortgages. But it is a novel so it personalises it in the case of this family. It’s headed by a single mother (the parents are divorced), and she loses her job. Before, the mother was a high-powered woman who was paid a lot of money and the two girls had everything they wanted. Now, step by step, they have to give up most of what they’ve got used to, including their nice house. It talks about the adjustments that the kids have had to make from the point of view of the teenager who is telling the story. It’s very well done. It’s a lot of real economics, mixed with teen angst, a little romance and a sense of humour. Exactly. The book is highly relevant and very timely. It’s not an analysis of the crisis, but a couple of pages worth of some fundamental ideas, in teenager speak, of what happened – without being too much of a lecture. It’s not dry, it’s not didactic, which is why I put it in my top five. Yes, and they become closer as a result. They become closer as a family and the children also get past themselves. They’re better able to see the world around them in realistic terms. They become more open-minded, in a healthy way. Yes, it’s a pun on the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it’s not so much about the magnitude – I think the pun is on the idea that things are not so wonderful. The family is not going through a great time; it is in fact a difficult period. I think that’s the play on the word great – it’s not fun."