Found on 16th Avenue, by Karen Roth (Watercress Press)

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Gritty and inspirational, Found on 16th Avenue brings to vibrant life the archetypical underdog we love to root for, but for whom we hold little hope.

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If anyone "didn't have a chance" at a normal life, it was Joseph Vesely. Illigitmate son of a cast-out homeless woman, Joe scratches out an existence on the streets barely this side of survival, while he watches his mother waste away from a life of abuse and alcoholism. At her passing, he is taken to live with his aunt, uncle and grandmother--a Czech family who lives in a world he didn't realize even existed, let alone understands.
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Set in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the 1930s, Ms. Roth immerses us in the life and times of the town's Czech community as they eke out their own existence in the throes of the Great Depression. John Mark Martin, Joe's uncle, pastors a small church during the day and provides for his family by working in a factory at night. Joe's irascible grandmother, Josephina Vesely, and his stoic aunt, Kate, struggle to maintain a meaningful family life for their two sons, Johnny and Stephen. When Joe shows up on their doorstep, the family's delicate physical, spiritual and emotional balance is put to the test. Their meager larder must stretch to fill another hungry mouth, their patience to win the emotionally scarred and withdrawn youth into their hearts, and their faith to lift him where he needs it the most.

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Ms. Roth does a fantastic job of pulling the reader into the story. Her characters are vivid and multi-dimensional, her descriptions acute. We recoil from the ambient stench of the factories along the river with John Mark as he trudges wearily home from his mid-shift. We choke and sweat through the dusty heat of a Midwestern summer as the boys chop and dig at the hard soil of the family garden. And we shiver in the sub-zero winter in the drafty house as Kate scrapes for just one more lump of coal to put in the furnace. But mostly, we hold our breaths as Joe takes one faltering step after another on the road to redemption.

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What's really great about this story, though, is that it doesn't end at the back cover. Ms. Roth has blessed the reader with the continuing story of Joe's coming of age in My Portion Forever, the sequel to 16th Avenue. Get 'em both and do what I once again failed to do: read Found on 16th Avenue first . . . (sigh!).