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Meet Kit Kittredge!
Margaret “Kit” Kittredge is growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the Great Depression. Clever and resourceful, she is happiest climbing trees, playing baseball, and writing news stories.
Kit’s strong and determined mother. When the Kittredges begin hosting boarders, she turns her flowerbeds into vegetable gardens and the lawn into a chicken run!
Jack Kittredge
Kit’s father, who loses his job in the Great Depression. He is generous and supportive. When his car business begins to struggle, he pays his employees out of his own savings for as long as he can.
Charles Kittredge
Kit’s kind and supportive brother, who is 16. He goes by Charlie, and his college plans have to change when their dad loses his job. Instead, he takes work with the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Aunt Millie
Dad’s thrifty aunt, who comes to stay with the Kittredges. She helps the Kittredge family make their money go further, and Kit turns her ideas into a book.
Will Shepherd
A young hobo from Texas, who is befriended by Kit and her family. Kit longs for Will’s life of adventure as he travels the country looking for work.
Turning Things Around
For Kit, the Depression has brought big changes: a houseful of boarders, tons of chores, and no birthday party. Then Aunt Millie arrives, and it looks as if her great ideas might turn things around for the Kittredges. But when Kit’s taste for adventure gets her into trouble, she discovers that the Depression has hit a lot of people far worse than her own family. Can one girl make a difference for homeless kids—when even grownups have lost hope? The second book in Kit’s stories is richly illustrated in full color and includes a “Looking Back” historical section about Kit’s world in 1934. Read an excerpt
Learning materials for schools and book clubs can be found here.
Turning Things Around
For Kit, the Depression has brought big changes: a houseful of boarders, tons of chores, and no birthday party. Then Aunt Millie arrives, and it looks as if her great ideas might turn things around for the Kittredges. But when Kit’s taste for adventure gets her into trouble, she discovers that the Depression has hit a lot of people far worse than her own family. Can one girl make a difference for homeless kids—when even grownups have lost hope? The second book in Kit’s stories is richly illustrated in full color and includes a “Looking Back” historical section about Kit’s world in 1934. Read an excerpt
Learning materials for schools and book clubs can be found here.
Author Valerie Tripp
Valerie Tripp says that she became a writer because of the kind of person she is. She says she’s curious, and writing requires you to be interested in everything. Some of the details in Kit’s books are based on real things that happened to Ms. Tripp’s mother and grandparents during the Great Depression. Ms. Tripp says talking is her favorite sport, and writing is a way of talking on paper! She’s a daydreamer, which helps her come up with her ideas. And she loves words. She even loves the struggle to come up with just the right words as she writes and rewrites. Ms. Tripp lives in Maryland with her husband.
Illustrator Walter Rane
Walter Rane wanted to be an artist ever since he was in kindergarten. At age ten he painted his first oil paintings, using the paints from a paint-by-number kit but ignoring the numbers and lines. He has worked as a book and magazine illustrator and painter for decades. Mr. Rane lives with his wife in New York City.
Kit's era
Kit's era
The Great Depression began with a stock market crash on October 29, 1929 and lasted for over a decade.
