The 1930s: As the Great Depression deepens and her family disintegrates, Maddy Skobel flees her central Ohio town-by freight train-determined to make her own way. Learning to survive as a hobo while facing hardship, danger, and violence, Maddy must discover her own resourcefulness and strengths. Through Maddy's eyes, Line by Line explores larger themes that especially resonate today: coming of age in times of economic devastation, trust in our government, and the life-shaping influence of family-both the family that we are born into and the family we create as we surround ourselves with those...

Large Print Edition The 1930s: As the Great Depression deepens and her family disintegrates, Maddy Skobel flees her central Ohio town-by freight train-determined to make her own way. Learning to survive as a hobo while facing hardship, danger, and violence, Maddy must discover her own resourcefulness and strengths. Through Maddy's eyes, Line by Line explores larger themes that especially resonate today: coming of age in times of economic devastation, trust in our government, and the life-shaping influence of family-both the family that we are born into and the family we create as we surround...

In 1931, while riding the rails in the early years of the Great Depression, Maddy Skobel, desperate for food, knocked on the door of a young, pregnant mother's house in Steamburg, New York, and was given a bowl of chili she has never forgotten. In the hobo tradition of working for a handout, Maddy made a drawing of the mother's little girl and promised to return one day to draw the new baby. Now six years have passed and Maddy, troubled by her yet unfulfilled promise, decides to travel from her home in Auburn, New York, to Steamburg to repay the woman's kindness. What should have been a...