I'm loving @Maggie Mae doing recaps of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I've been thinking about the poverty depicted in the book.  It didn't really resonate with me as a kid, likely because in fantasy books it's easy to chalk everything up to exaggeration as things are never as bad, or as good, as they appear.

Striped Ice Cream by Joan M Lexau was different for me.  I read that in second grade and four decades later I can still remember the emotional impact of that book.  As with all books I loved I read it start to finish at once, then went back to read it again to savor the story.  I remember even then being aware that some authors can tell a story, and some just grab you and pull you into the story.  Joan Lexau was a grabber.  She could paint a picture so vivid you felt like you weren't reading about these characters, but that they were real and you were a silent observer to their lives.

The protagonist was Becky, an eight year old girl; a year older than I was when I read the book.   She was the youngest with bossy older siblings...that was my life.  She was being raised by a single mom and my parents were divorced.  Her mom worked as did mine, an adjustment I hadn't quite come to grips with at that time.  I just related to her in many ways.

I think the similarities made the impact of the differences so powerful.  

Becky desperately wanted chicken spaghetti and stripped ice cream for her birthday dinner.  But in Becky's world adding chicken to the spaghetti and buying ice cream were luxuries that didn't happen often.  Her mother was working hard and struggling and with someone needing new shoes and other expenses Becky didn't expect she would have any kind of special birthday dinner.  Becky lived in what I remember as being the housing projects, because later when saw Good Times on TV my first thought was it was like what was described in the book.  

My family was not wealthy when I was growing up, but we were solidly middle class.  Quiet suburb, good schools, comfortable home.  Everything we needed and most of what we wanted.

Until I read that book I was completely unaware that there were kids out there for whom chicken was a luxury and ice cream wasn't a given.  Kids who, when they got new shoes, got the sturdy, economical ones that would last.  Kids who understood early on where money came from, and when you buy shoes sometimes it means you can't afford chicken.  

That book opened my eyes in a way that wasn't comfortable - even at that age.  I asked my mom about it hoping she would tell me it was just a story, but she told me stories of her own childhood - born into a large Catholic family in the depression - of cardboard in shoes to make them last a little longer, sharing a bed with her sisters...portioning out food to make it last the week.  Confirming what I didn't want to be true.  And tossing more than a little bit of, "so be more grateful for what you have, missy!" in there.  

I would like to say this book made me a better person - but when I begged and begged for chicken spaghetti because I just had to have it, most of it went uneaten because ...picky eater...and Neapolitan ice cream was always an issue for me because try as i would to eat them separately some bites would be a mixture of flavors I found upsetting.  

I loved that book so much I'm doing a book report on it at 40 something.