The most challenging posts I write are the reflective ones that pop up between the sewing and book posts every so often. Sewing and book posts follow a kind of formula – I just tell you what I did or read.

Translating thoughts and feelings into something readable isn’t easy. I didn’t start this blog because it’s easy to write, though, and I’m trying to use this year to challenge myself to do things that I’m afraid to do, like write, possibly badly, to express ideas and truths I’ve discovered.

In that spirit, I am rounding up three books into one post – three books that are so unlike one another that they usually would have each have garnered their own post. I’m combining them so I can spend more time writing those other, more difficult posts that force me to work harder and hopefully challenge you, the reader, to do some mental exercise as well, at least once in a while.

1. The Daring Ladies of Lowell, by Kate Alcott

My mom and I spent the night at a hotel in Lowell, Massachusetts years ago on our way to a wedding in Maine. I remember a charming little New England town, and most importantly, the warm chocolate chip cookies they served us at the front desk when we checked in. I don’t stay at hotels very often, and biting into that soft, delicious cookie sank deep into my memory.

I knew the town was historic, but I’d never really explored why until I found The Daring Ladies of Lowell, by Kate Alcott, at the library.

Alcott paints a picture of Lowell in the 1830’s at a fabric mill filled with workers, mostly women who come from very poor households with fathers who controlled their life choices. Women’s career options were limited to marriage, farm work, housekeeping, or all three. Working at the mill offered the women an opportunity for independence and the ability to earn a wage, but the trade-off was leaving their families behind for long hours and unsafe working conditions.

My favorite thing about a historical fiction work is when the story told is unique, but still fits tightly into the known historical narrative. The Daring Ladies of Lowell provides a lovely story with characters that are easy to befriend, and a context that fits into the documented events that took place in that time. The afterword fleshes out the context, and the internet has plenty of photos to provide some visuals of the factories and what women wore to work.

2. Good Talk, by Mira Jacob.

Good Talk is the first graphic novel I’ve ever read. I’ve avoided them because, like audio books, graphic novels feel like they Don’t Count. Yet I also love photo-heavy books without a ton of text as a break from my other reading.

Good Talk was an impulse buy, although I got it from the library, so it didn’t actually cost anything. Our library has themed displays up by the check-out desk to tempt readers with something they might not otherwise have read, and based purely on the title (I didn’t even realize it was a graphic novel when I checked it out), Good Talk somehow snuck into my bag of borrowed books one day without my consciously choosing it.

Set as a series of conversations that jump back and forth in time over the course of the author’s life, this book could have been a jumbled train wreck, but instead, it’s a cohesive, thoughtful narrative about being brown in the U.S. and raising brown kids here. Jacob talks politics, but you don’t hate her for it.

My only hesitation with this book is that there is some nudity. It’s just a couple of pages, and it’s part of the narrative – but my beef with that type of content is, the illustrations in graphic novels tend to interest kids and that kid might get more than they bargained for if they flip this one open to the wrong page. I don’t think those particular illustrations were necessary to drive the plot.

I didn’t even know about the content – I don’t even know if I had realized it was a graphic novel yet – and I left it sitting on my coffee table for several days before starting it. Most of the books I read, my kids would never even touch. Because she talked to me about the book, I know one of my older kids paged through this one before I got my hands on it. She mentioned something she saw in it, but would she have said anything if she did see the pages I’m referring to? I don’t know.

The book helps the reader through important conversations about race and politics in America. Sure, like so many discussions these days, it can feel polarizing, but Jacob gives us the opportunity to think about ideas which are necessary for all of us to consider no matter what color we are. The graphic novel format worked to create visual and mental space to process the ideas Jacob is expressing.

3. Free Lunch, by Rex Ogle.

This middle grade novel introduces some difficult concepts – extreme poverty, physical abuse, and the truly idiotic things kids do when they are together to try to seem cool. Yet Ogle somehow pads this content with a compassionate understanding and lack of bitterness that further mushes your tenderized heart.

When we worry about money, sometimes we forget how desperate the situation is for others who are a few rungs lower socioeconomically. Further, the children who find themselves trapped in this situation have so little leverage to get support to succeed and not be pulled into the same mill that crushes their parents every day.

I was a full third of the way into the book when I realized the protagonist had the same name as the author. At this point, I had already intuited that the character in the story was a contemporary. I grew up going to a high school in rural Upstate New York and I went to school with a fair number of Reg Ogles.

Free Lunch is such a heartbreaking story, but it is so important – both for the privileged kids to know what it’s like for kids for whom everything does not come easily, and for kids like Rex to know they are not alone.

The domestic violence described is truly harrowing and pushes the boundaries of what is appropriate for the lower end of the recommended audience of 9-12 year olds. I found myself feeling sad that 9-year-old kids would be exposed to the content and at the same time knowing intuitively that many kids that age have already either experienced Ogle’s life as their own reality or have seen similar content on a screen.

I didn’t ask my two kids in the 9-12 age bracket to read this book, mainly because, as my 12-year-old put it, when I recommend read a book it makes them NOT want to read (Thanks, girl, for your honesty).

Even if my kids don’t read Free Lunch, I’m glad I did. It was a valuable reminder to be kind to others. As an adult, I am encouraged to look critically at the income inequality in our nation and see if there is something I can do on an individual level about it – whether I communicate with my vote or find a way to use my resources to support others who find themselves in a difficult spot.