Free Lunch by Rex Ogle
Instead of giving him lunch money, Rex’s 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 he’s on the free meal program. The lunch lady is hard of hearing, so Rex has to shout. Free Lunch is the story of Rex’s efforts to navigate his first semester of sixth grade—who 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 he’s trouble—all 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. Rex’s voice is compelling and authentic, and Free Lunch is a true, timely, and essential work that illuminates the lived experience of poverty in America.
Review from School Library Journal:
Heart-wrenching, timely, and beautifully written, this is a powerful and urgent work of autofiction. Telling his own story of growing up in Texas, Ogle looks back at starting middle school while navigating the crushing poverty and intermittent violence of his home life. It is especially humiliating to sixth-grade Rex that he is required to announce his free lunch status every day in the school cafeteria, wear second hand clothes, and give excuses for not playing football when the truth is that there's no money for the uniform. At home, where he lives with his unemployed mother and her boyfriend, Rex is the one who cares for his baby brother, balances the checkbook, and cooks dinner. His mother, overwhelmed and hopeless, clearly loves Rex, but does not know how to care for her sensitive son. At school, Rex struggles to maintain friendships with boys who have joined the football team and to make new friends—until he meets Ethan, a classmate who encourages Rex to recognize that every family is complicated. He also has to contend with his English teacher, Mrs. Winstead, who does not miss an opportunity to make Rex feel bad about himself. Over time, and with the support of his loving Mexican grandmother, Rex grows into an empathetic boy who begins to recognize the hardships his mother faces and starts to look outward in ways not restricted by his immediate situation.