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by Kate Smith Smith (Illustrator), Jacklyn Landis (Author), Alice Grimes (Editor)
Walk with eight-year-old Pauline and the Sampley family through the dust and depression of the 1930's. Feel the sting of the blowing desert sands against your skin and the dust sucked deep into your lungs. Feel your heart skipping a beat when the teacher calls on Pauline and she doesn't know the answer. How could she know when her back was bent over rows of cotton or beet fields, instead of a school desk. Feel the pain of separating from someone you love for the sake of putting food on the family table. Pauline never hung a bulb on a Christmas tree - never ripped the paper off a gift on Christmas morning, and never blew out the candles on a birthday cake. She clung tight to the only gift she ever knew - the gift of her family. She tied it all up in a knot that couldn't be broken. Was it really the Promise of the Road that motivated the Sampley family through the hard times, or was it something else?
