Fighting for the Forest

Fighting for the Forest

Juvenile nonfiction
If you know much about the Great Depression, you realize that
the year 1933 was a very grim one for a lot of people. A few years
earlier the Stock Market had crashed. Businesses, factories, and
banks were going under. People were losing jobs, savings, and homes.
Folks had to live in cars or shacks thrown together out of whatever
they could get their hands on. Malnutrition and hunger were rampant.
"Imagine going whole days with nothing to eat or putting ketchup
on a piece of bread and calling it dinner. Children felt real pain in
their stomachs because of the hunger. They went to bed hungry and
woke to go to school without breakfast..."
President Hoover who was in office the first three years of the
Depression believed (like so many people in government today) that
government had no business messing around in people's economic lives.
That was the domain of "voluntary organizations and community
service." This attitude didn't win him a lot of public support. The
shanty towns of the desperately poor were called Hoovervilles. And he
lost the election of 1932 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Roosevelt felt that government was the only entity big enough to
save the country and its citizens. Under the umbrella term of New
Deal he introduced what some people called an alphabet soup of relief
programs. The one that was perhaps dearest to his heart was the CCC
(Civilian Conservation Corps).
Unemployment was very high among teens and young adults. Much
farmland was being lost to erosion. Forests were being overused.
National parks were being neglected. Roosevelt believed that putting
young men to work in fresh air and healthy surroundings (with enough
wholesome food) he could save both human and natural resources. P.
O'Connell Pearson's Fighting for the Forest is a great way to
introduce younger readers to this fascinating chapter in American
history.
On a purrrsonal note, Wednesday I donated blood. Then I volunteered
at canteen the rest of the day making sure people were eating and
drinking and not fainting and enjoying my captive audience for Tobago
pictures and stories. They did seem to enjoy the pictures (a bunch
showed me pictures of their cats) and stories. We got these really
cool shirts for donating. They actually have a cat on them. We got
72 donations and no fainters which made it an excellent day.
A great big shout out goes out to all people involved in the blood
drive and sweet little Tobago who is napping contentedly. Also dear
Joey cat whose memory I treasure. This is my first Valentines Day
without him and I so miss his way of making every day Valentines Day.
jules hathaway



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