You have nothing to do with probabilities or statistics … but those were real, often devastating forces in my life and in the lives of so many children. I’d like to honor you by trying to articulate what no-one articulated for me: what it means to be a poor child in a rich country founded on the promise of equality.”
-- The Author (Narration) (Introduction – “Dear August”)

Importance: In this quote, the author does two things. One, she summarizes the book's core thematic and narrative contention. This is the idea that being poor in America is defined primarily by the fact that the so-called "American Dream" is a failure, its "promise of equality" undermined by the social, political, and economic realities associated with being poor. The second thing the author accomplishes is that she establishes a narrative convention, or ongoing stylistic choice, that she continues throughout the book. This is her use of second-person, addressing the reader as...