num_pages: 208
description: Instead of giving him lunch money Rexs mom has signed him up for free meals. As a poor kid in a wealthy school district better-off kids crowd impatiently behind him as he tries to explain to the cashier that hes on the free meal program. The lunch lady is hard of hearing so Rex has to shout.Free Lunch is the story of Rexs efforts to navigate his first semester of sixth gradewho to sit with not being able to join the football team Halloween in a handmade costume classmates and a teacher who take one look at him and decide hes troubleall while wearing secondhand clothes and being hungry. His mom and her boyfriend are out of work and life at home is punctuated by outbursts of violence. Halfway through the semester his family is evicted and ends up in government-subsidized housing in view of the school. Rex lingers at the end of last period every day until the buses have left so no one will see where he lives.Unsparing and realistic Free Lunch is a story of hardship threaded with hope and moments of grace. Rexs voice is compelling and authentic and Free Lunch is a true timely and essential work that illuminates the lived experience of poverty in America.
language: English
title: Free Lunch
publisher: Norton Young Readers