Here are 100 books that Roam fans have personally recommended if you like
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At the close of World War II, I was born into the peace and prosperity of mid-twentieth century America, but I longed to be transported to an earlier era and a simpler time. I grew up living in an apartment building in New York City, but my spiritual home was Central Park, which served as my wilderness. Clumps of bushes were my woods. Rock outcroppings were my mountains. Books like Heidi and Little House on the Prairie captured my imagination and warmed my heart. But when my beloved father died in my eleventh year, a shadow fell that changed the emotional landscape of my life.
I wasn't an orphan, I wasn’t raised on a farm, and no one teased me for my ordinary brown hair, but my identification with “carrot topped” Anne Shirley was immersive and all consuming. I could smell the flowers and taste the russet apples she delights in, and I could feel the unrelenting joie de vivre that, despite life’s many slings and arrows, courses through her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
This book may date from 1905, but this beloved story of an orphan girl who comes to live with an aging brother and sister on their farm on Prince Edward Island has lost nothing of its irresistible charm. An awkward outsider looking in upon a world she longs to join, outspoken, feisty, wildly imaginative Anne came alive for me and won my heart from the moment I met her on the page.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
I grew up on a farm on the Canadian prairies where my only entertainment was books. This was before TV and the internet. Reading about girls who overcame obstacles such as being orphaned, dealing with homelessness or a disability, helped me realize that girls can overcome anything with the right attitude and by being brave. These attitudes of fearlessness, positive thinking, and resourcefulness shaped my life and helped me realize many of my dreams, including being a published author. Books with strong female characters help girls realize their own dreams.
The story is told from the point of view of Morgan, a thirteen-year-old indigenous girl who has been in foster care since she was three years old. She is angry and confused, and although her new foster home is a good one, she is so used to things not working out, she can't help sabotaging the situation. Then a young boy joins the family with his own problems. Things go from bad to worse. It takes an adventure for Morgan to appreciate where she comes from. Great world building and interesting animal characters. The book is visually appealing with subtle lessons, a good mix of humour, and a sense of hope.
Narnia meets traditional Indigenous stories of the sky and constellations in an epic middle-grade fantasy series from award-winning author David Robertson.
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home -- until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only…
I grew up on a farm on the Canadian prairies where my only entertainment was books. This was before TV and the internet. Reading about girls who overcame obstacles such as being orphaned, dealing with homelessness or a disability, helped me realize that girls can overcome anything with the right attitude and by being brave. These attitudes of fearlessness, positive thinking, and resourcefulness shaped my life and helped me realize many of my dreams, including being a published author. Books with strong female characters help girls realize their own dreams.
The orphan girl Pollyanna moves in with her strict aunt in New England. Despite a difficult start, Pollyanna's exuberance and positivity affect everyone who meets her, and she spreads joy and love wherever she goes. I loved Pollyanna when I read it as a young girl and patterned my life after her positive thinking. Pollyanna, like myself, often finds her optimistic attitude tested, but she always learns to find happiness in every situation.
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As soon as Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville to live with her strict and dutiful maiden aunt, she begins to brighten up everybody's life. The 'glad game' she plays, of finding a silver lining in every cloud, transforms the sick, the lonely and the plain miserable - until one day something so terrible happens that even Pollyanna doesn't know how to feel glad about it.
I grew up on a farm on the Canadian prairies where my only entertainment was books. This was before TV and the internet. Reading about girls who overcame obstacles such as being orphaned, dealing with homelessness or a disability, helped me realize that girls can overcome anything with the right attitude and by being brave. These attitudes of fearlessness, positive thinking, and resourcefulness shaped my life and helped me realize many of my dreams, including being a published author. Books with strong female characters help girls realize their own dreams.
This story evokes many emotions. The world of Cammie Deveau, a young girl with more than her fair share of disadvantages, is described well. The story is set in rural Nova Scotia just after World War II. The author has created a memorable, spunky ten-year-old with limited vision who dreams of a better life against all odds. Other quirky characters are sprinkled throughout the story, some hilarious, others sad and pathetic. The descriptions of the time and place are so well done the reader is easily transported there. With the clever use of dialogue that is both timely and local, this is a most enjoyable read that will keep you turning the pages as you root for Cammie.
Cammie Deveau began life with a few strikes against her. She’s visually impaired, abandoned by her mother at birth, her father was a casualty of the Second World War—and if all that isn’t enough, she’s being raised by her bootlegging aunt. No wonder she dreams of starting a brand new life.
When Cammie learns about a school for blind and visually impaired children she becomes convinced a new life is waiting for her in Halifax, but how will she ever convince her aunt to let her go? With the help of her best friend, they devise a plan to blow…
I moved to New York City in 1984 as homelessness, and the AIDS epidemic were crises all too visible to this newcomer. To my good fortune, my post-doctoral training included some of the earliest experts on mental illness and homelessness. This work became a career goal that has sustained me through almost 40 years of research using qualitative (in-depth) methods. Obtaining federal funding to support this work and mentoring many graduate students were extra benefits that I cherished. Along the way, I wrote a textbook on qualitative methods (now in its 3rd edition), co-authored a book about Housing First, and traveled to Delhi, India to study their ‘pavement dwellers’.
This book is admittedly old (published in 2003), but I find myself returning to it time and again as an important touchstone to understanding the origins and consequences of homelessness in America. Hopper is an anthropologist and activist, one of the first to study the ‘new’ epidemic of homelessness that appeared in the 1980s in cities like New York.
Hopper’s book traces the historical roots and consequences of the epidemic and is prescient in foretelling points of contention, such as the African-American racism underlying housing precarity. Far from the stilted reporting style of academic reporting, this book reads like a conversation and an invitation to learn more.
"It must be some kind of experiment or something, to see how long people can live without food, without shelter, without security."-homeless woman, Grand Central Station, winter
"Homelessness is a routine fact of life on the margins. Materially, it emerges out of a tangled but unmysterious mix of factors: scarce housing, poorly planned and badly implemented policies of relocation and support, dismal prospects of work, exhausted or alienated kin.... Any outreach worker could tell you that list would be incomplete without one more: how misery can come to prefer its own company."-from the book
I moved to New York City in 1984 as homelessness, and the AIDS epidemic were crises all too visible to this newcomer. To my good fortune, my post-doctoral training included some of the earliest experts on mental illness and homelessness. This work became a career goal that has sustained me through almost 40 years of research using qualitative (in-depth) methods. Obtaining federal funding to support this work and mentoring many graduate students were extra benefits that I cherished. Along the way, I wrote a textbook on qualitative methods (now in its 3rd edition), co-authored a book about Housing First, and traveled to Delhi, India to study their ‘pavement dwellers’.
Matthew Desmond achieved rock star status in academia with his first book “Evicted,” a prize-winning report on people living on the edge of homelessness in Milwaukee’s predominantly black North Side and the city’s white South Side. I welcomed this follow-up book because Desmond goes beyond good story-telling to a no-holds-barred indictment of America’s appalling poverty problem and its origins.
Locked into a dysfunctional economic system that benefits the wealthiest (slumlords actually profit more than luxury condo developers), millions of Americans live precariously close to destitution, and the wealth gap increases annually. I hope to take up Desmond’s call to become a “poverty abolitionist.” This is the book I have been waiting for.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.
“Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch.”—The New Yorker
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The Washington Post, Time, Esquire, Newsweek, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Elle, Salon, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow…
Teaching middle school made me painfully aware of the disparity in our students’ lives. Some kids have every advantage, while others struggle to survive without enough food, clean water, or a safe, dry place to sleep for the night. All these kids, with their diverse backgrounds, sit side-by-side in class and are expected to perform at the same academic and social levels. In my novels, I feature ordinary teens that are strong, smart, and resilient, like so many of the students who taught me as much as I taught them.
Catherine Ryan Hyde does a masterful job of showing us the stark reality of teen homelessness through the eyes of Jordy and Chloe. The content of the first few chapters was hard for me to read because of what young people must do to survive on the street and what traumas lead them there in the first place. As the story unfolded, though, Hyde took me on a warm and loving journey as Jordy set out to show Chloe that there truly is a lot of beauty in the world.
Meet Jordy. He’s on his own in New York City. Nobody to depend on; nobody depending on him. And it’s been working fine. Until this girl comes along. She’s 18 and blond and pretty–her world should be perfect. But she’s seen things no one should ever see in their whole life–the kind of things that break a person. She doesn’t seem broken, though. She seems . . . innocent. Like she doesn’t know a whole lot. Only sometimes she does. The one thing she knows for sure is that the world is an ugly place. Now her life may depend…
In March 2020, in the middle of a pandemic that had all but crippled New York City, my husband and I became homeless advocates. For months, we woke up each morning, made dozens of sandwiches, and walked the deserted city streets trying to feed the homeless, who were struggling to survive. Deserted streets meant no panhandling, which in turn, meant no food. In doing so, we became friends with many of the homeless men and women in our neighborhood. Fear and suspicion were replaced by trust and love, and our eyes and hearts were forever opened to people who had once been objects to be avoided.
This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Hometells the story of the difficulty of finding acceptable housing for the poor in New York City. Sandler follows the story of a young, poor, unwed mother, Camila, for one year as she struggles to find safe and affordable housing for herself and her newborn son. Against all odds, red tape, and never-ending bureaucracy, Camila never gives up. I found this story inspiring as well as educational about the homelessness crisis in New York City, a new found passion after my experience trying to feed the homeless during the first year of the pandemic.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in America
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • “Riveting . . . a remarkable feat of reporting.”—The New York Times
Camila is twenty-two years old and a new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. In this extraordinary work of literary reportage, Lauren…
Teaching middle school made me painfully aware of the disparity in our students’ lives. Some kids have every advantage, while others struggle to survive without enough food, clean water, or a safe, dry place to sleep for the night. All these kids, with their diverse backgrounds, sit side-by-side in class and are expected to perform at the same academic and social levels. In my novels, I feature ordinary teens that are strong, smart, and resilient, like so many of the students who taught me as much as I taught them.
Can’t Get There from Hereis another stark look at the realities of kids living on the street. Strasser quickly drew me into the life of Maybe and her tribe of friends Maggot, 2Moro, Rainbow, and Tears. Their day-to-day existence is one of scrounging for food, looking for a safe place to sleep for the night, and avoiding those who would harm them. Adults have hurt these kids so many times and in so many ways that their reluctance to trust the police for help is totally understandable.
She lives with a tribe of homeless teens -- runaways and throwaways, kids who have no place to go other than the cold city streets, and no family except for one another. Abused, abandoned, and forgotten, they struggle against the cold, hunger, and constant danger.
With the frigid winds of January comes a new girl: Tears, a twelve-year-old whose mother doesn't believe her stepfather abuses her. As the other kids start to disappear -- victims of violence, addiction, and exposure -- Maybe tries to help Tears get off the streets...if it's not already too late.…
Creatively formulating, cultivating, and producing high-quality fiction “masterpieces” is what I was destined to do. The art of writing is a “gift & passion” that runs rapidly through my veins. Propelled through an obitual love of reading adventurous tales and storytelling as a young child my writing voyage has expanded to writing poetry, monologues, and screen writing. Combining all imaginative inspired gifts and talents refined by a burning passion to communicate prolific narrations like no other author can. Inspirational, impactful authors that paved the way for me to be here are Maya Angelou, Roald Dahl, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Levar Burton, and Nikki Giovanni.
A timeless, classic treasure and a personal favorite of mine.
Sounder is a fiction novel, that takes you on an unpredictable emotional roller coaster of unpredictable life events, adversity, and one young boy's unmerited love for his dog.
A saga of an African American sharecropping family conquering and overcoming its economic, financial, racial, and societal challenges of the 1960s after they are set out to fend for themselves after a “young boy's” father is imprisoned for theft.
This expressive fable engulfs you in thought and emotion surrounding limitless perseverance, in spite of. I can’t even tell you how many times I read this book over and over as a young adult. No dull c liché plots this book never gets old and is an overall great read.
The Newbery Medal–winning classic novel about the courage and faith—and the love of a dog—that give a family strength in the face of inhumanity.
The boy knows that times are tough for his family. Every night, his father goes out hunting with their great coon dog, Sounder, to try to put food on the table. But even with the little they bring back, there is still never enough for the family to eat.
When the boy awakens one morning to a sweet-smelling ham on the table, it seems like a blessing. But soon, the sheriff and his deputies come to…
