Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh | Conversation StartersSarah Smarsh asked herself “what would I tell my daughter?” It’s this question that kept her on track, pursuing an education and using the can-do attitude which she inherited from her family to rise out of the cycle of poverty. She writes about the women and men in her family in a tone filled with love and care as she talks about their survival concerns. White but poor women had to bear pregnancies without adequate health care. They held physical jobs that chain them to repetitive work. She tells how it is to go through the shame of being poor. Smarsh gets educated and gets a better life but many other farmers’ families remain poor and their poverty is associated with being bad. The economic inequality that is revealed in her story is an indictment of a country that “has failed its children.” The American Conservative review says it is a book with a “transformative vision” and is a message needed to “wake up a blind and uncaring America.” Heartland is an instant New York Times bestseller. It is a Finalist for the National Book Award.A Brief Look Inside:EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPERthan the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive,and the characters and its world still live on.Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed tobring us beneath the surface of the pageand invite us into the world that lives on.These questions can be used to..Create Hours of Conversation:• Foster a deeper understanding of the book• Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups• Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately• Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before