A review by magicschooltokoro
No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt

3.0

"They are a growing army. There are hundreds of them on the roads this winter; most of them are boys in their teens. There are scores of younger children, some of them so young that one marvels at their survival. They come from the cities where the unemployment of a father often means too little food for too many mouths. They come from the farms where the incredibly low prices of produce have been as tragic for the farm family. They don't know where they are going or why. They simply move on—on to the next door for a handout or maybe a curse, on to the next packing box or sand cave for a bed. . . .
A few of the wild boys of the road are in good hands tonight. But they are only a few. Hundreds of others are out in fields, on the highways, in the poorer sections of towns and cities. They are raiding garbage cans; thy are burning anything they can find in an effort to keep warm. Not since the crusades have so many children suffered so cruelly. And this is the United States of America in the year of our Lord, 1933."

Such is one story of two musical, wandering brothers.

I saw a more dramatic, decades older children's book by this author I don't remember know about during my own childhood and readings, and so was intrigued, noting the author to look up. I remember I had once recently briefly noticing a children's book of Howl's Moving Castle, I think, and found a couple of others I was interested around it—another book adapted to screen, Whale Rider and this, wanted to find one of her books.

It reminded me of the wandering of an orphaned Pole, experiencing the worst of the First World War, able to emigrate to the U.S. through a British embassy and work his way up to master hotelier, in the book, Cain and Abel—his lifelong rivalry with a privileged kid become banker born on the same day. The tone was sober but with a child's hope.