Macaroni Boy is an historical

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

, young-adult novel by the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer Katherine Ayres

Katherine Ayres

Katherine Ayres is an American writer of children's literature.Born in 1947 in Columbus, Ohio, she was raised in Ohio, West Virginia, and New York. In 1965 she graduated from West Islip High School in West Islip, New York. She completed her BA at The College of Wooster in 1969 and her MA at Tufts...

.

It is set in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and tells the story of sixth-grader Mike Costa. His large Italian-American family owns a food warehouse in the Strip District, but the school bully taunts him, calling him Macaroni Boy. Mike is the store's rat killer, and when he checks his traps he is catching fewer. Mike eventually discovers a connection between the dying rats and his grandfather's illness.