In a parallel world, the size of humans depends on how much money (munmun) they have. The poorest people are tiny (the size of rats) and face daily challenges and dangers (cats, being stepped on, or just getting from Point A to Point B can all prove deadly). Wealthy people are giant-sized by comparison and have to eat and drink massive quantities just to stay alive. But no one is stuck in their sizes, and with enough munmun, a tiny person can size up. Warner is a scrappy LittlePoor—the smallest, poorest, and weakest of beings. At his mother’s direction, he and his best friend Usher accompany Warner’s sister across town to a law school campus, hoping she will attract the attentions of a MiddleRich law student who might fall in love with her and then size her—and possibly, the whole family—up. Their escapades are both hilarious and hair-raising as events unfold in Warner’s comically distinctive voice. Warner uses a deliciously skewed English, which includes new compound words and clever phonetic spellings, in this original novel that offers a sharp, witty social satire, as well as an exploration of economic inequities. (Age 12 and older)

In an alternate reality a lot like our world, every person’s physical size is directly proportional to their wealth. The poorest of the poor are the size of rats, and billionaires are the size of skyscrapers. Warner and his sister Prayer are destitute—and tiny. Their size is not just demeaning, but dangerous: day and night they face mortal dangers that bigger richer people don’t ever have to think about, from being mauled by cats to their house getting stepped on. There are no cars or phones built small enough for them, or schools or hospitals, for that matter—there’s no point, when no one that little has any purchasing power, and when salaried doctors and teachers would never fit in buildings so small. Warner and Prayer know their only hope is to scale up, but how can two littlepoors survive in a world built against them? A brilliant, warm, funny trip, unlike anything else out there, and a social novel for our time in the tradition of 1984 or Invisible Man. Inequality is made intensely visceral by an adventure and tragedy both hilarious and heartbreaking.