I went through major surgery when I was in eighth grade. The physical pain was bad, but what hurt more was the emotional side. When I returned to school, the friend groups had shifted, shutting me out because of my extended absence. I had to face that time in life alone. Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to works about kids who have to face challenges on their own. When we go through hard times, our true selves come out. They have to; we have no one else. We can’t pretend. We can only try to make it. The books I like show characters that shine through their hardships.
This book is amazing. It’s about a kid named Jackson whose parents are having trouble making ends meet. It looks like they’re going to be homeless... again. But that’s when Crenshaw, Jackson’s old imaginary friend shows up. I love how Katherine Applegate shows Jackson’s fears and hopes. I grew up pretty poor, and so I know that she does a great job with this tough situation. Yet, despite the hardships, Applegate fills this book with fun, like when Crenshaw, a giant imaginary cat, takes a bubble bath.
The heart-warming new story about family and friendships from Newbery Medal-winner Katherine Applegate.
Life is tough for ten-year-old Jackson. The landlord is often at the door, there's not much food in the fridge and he's worried that any day now the family will have to move out of their home. Again.
Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken and he's imaginary. He's come back into Jackson's life to help him but is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything?
A heart-warming story about family and friendships from Newbery medal winner Katherine Applegate.
I am the author of two middle grade books, and I love writing about kids who may not have much materially but abound in heart and courage. I grew up in a small southern town and my childhood was just like that—low on income but full of love, hope, and friendship. I want kids to know that despite their circumstances there is hope for a better life. Like Wavie’s mom tells her in my book, Hope In The Holler, “You’ve got as much right to a good life as anybody. So go find it!”
I’ve been to India three times and I love to share books that show its complex, beautiful, and sometimes brutal culture. When sisters Viji and Rukku leave home to escape their abusive father, readers are given a detailed look at what living on the streets of India is like for many children. It’s a realistic lesson on the caste system and abject poverty, all wrapped in a compelling story; and I am always a fan of books that show siblings that care deeply for one another. I also hope it sparks an interest in that amazing country and its inhabitants.
"Readers will be captivated by this beautifully written novel about young people who must use their instincts and grit to survive. Padma shares with us an unflinching peek into the reality millions of homeless children live every day but also infuses her story with hope and bravery that will inspire readers and stay with them long after turning the final page."--Aisha Saeed, author of the New York Times Bestselling Amal Unbound
Cover may vary.
Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman's stirring middle-grade debut.
Life is harsh in Chennai's teeming streets, so when runaway sisters…
I have dedicated my personal and professional life to expanding opportunities for girls and women and cultivating leadership skills. All of my books portray girls as main characters who exhibit bravery in many ways. They have joined the French Resistance in World War Two, chased enemy soldiers during the Civil War, delivered messages in the middle of a Revolutionary War battle, and fought for women’s rights in classrooms, workplaces, science labs, and at home. They’ve also been brave by building self-reliance and confidence in times of trouble and trusting their own abilities to make decisions and take action. I've recommended five books that exemplify these characteristics and are examples of outstanding writing.
Just Under the Clouds is a beautifully written story about tough yet gentle Cora, who fiercely protects her younger sister as the family struggles with homelessness. This story shows how bravery comes in many forms, including as a quiet, loving strength. This book stayed with me well after I finished it. The author managed to capture a serious issue in a magical, compelling story. The tree imagery is wonderful.
Can you still have a home if you don't have a house? In the spirit of The Truth About Jellyfish and Fish in a Tree comes a stunning debut about a family struggling to find a place to belong.
To climb a tree, always think in threes and you'll never fall. "Two feet, one hand. Two hands, one foot," Cora's father told her when she was a little girl. Now Cora is in middle school, her father is gone, her family is homeless, and Cora has to look after her younger sister, Adare, who needs a lot of looking after.…
SUN DON'T SHINE is addictingly wonderful in the most heartbreaking and poignant way. I devoured this book in one sitting, unable to tear myself away. Reece's tale, though fictional, serves as a reflection of the harsh realities many face in America. She emerges as a resilient heroine, navigating through a landscape of profound sorrow with an unwavering spirit of hope. Despite the darkness surrounding her, her resilience shines through, guiding the reader through to the end.
Sixteen-year-old Reece is an expert at keeping secrets. She has to be, since her father abducted her ten years ago. For as long as she can remember, she's been on the run, sneaking food out of the dumpster and sleeping in the woods. Every time she moves, the same rules apply-cut your hair, change your name, and, above all, don't let anybody get too close. Reece has no choice except to obey Dad's orders. When Reece meets her first real friend, a boy named Shawn, she begins to realize that everyone else has secrets too. And the deadliest secret of…
I’ve been fascinated by nonfiction since my teens, by the idea of books about things that really happened. Fiction gets all the kudos, all the big prizes, all the respect. But as far as I’m concerned, trying to wrestle the unruly matter of reality onto the page is much more challenging – imaginatively, technically, ethically – than simply making things up! My book The Travel Writing Tribe is all about those challenges – and about the people, the well-known travel writers, who have to confront them every time they put pen to paper.
“Middle-class academic writes nonfiction about homeless substance abuser” – that sounds like a recipe for overweening earnestness at best, or at worst an exploitative catastrophe. But right from the first line of this astonishing book you know that the author isn’t entirely in control, that the subject, his troubled friend Stuart Shorter, has agency in these pages in a way he seldom did elsewhere in life. It’s a gut-crunchingly sad story, but also often very funny – which, you get the feeling, is exactly how Stuart would have wanted it.
A unique biography of a homeless man and a complete portrait of the hidden underclass. 'So here it is, my attempt at the story of Stuart Shorter, thief, hostage taker, psycho and sociopath street raconteur, my spy on how the British chaotic underclass spend their troubled days at the beginning of this century: a man with an important life. I wish I could have presented it to Stuart before he stepped in front of the 11.15 train from London to Kings Lynn.' Stuart Shorter's brief life was one of turmoil and chaos. In this remarkable book, a masterful act of…
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
When I was small, a goblin lived in my closet. I was sure of it. At night, I huddled under my blanket, listening to the unexplainable noises coming from my closet. And yet, I also have felt like that monster hiding in the closet—afraid to enter the wide world, afraid of who I might meet and what they might think of me. I have felt different. Misunderstood. This list of monstrous middle-grade books shows how our story monsters are more than metaphors. They are a way to understand ourselves, our big emotions, our daydreams, and our nightmares. I guarantee these books will delight and empower younger and older readers.
Set in 1875 London, this children’s novel tells the story of a hungry, overworked girl who labors as a chimney sweep and the golem made of soot who cares for her.
I adore the idea of a soot golem as a caregiver and someone to care for. And don’t we all need to love and be loved, even though it can feel scary and risky at times? This story made me want my own soot monster.
3
authors picked
Sweep
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
8,
9,
10, and
11.
What is this book about?
From the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan
Auxier comes an enchanting standalone novel about the power of
friendship and the beauty of finding home
Nan Sparrow is one of London's countless "climbers"-children who spend
their days cleaning chimneys. The work is brutal and dangerous. Thanks
to her wits and will, Nan has managed to beat the deadly odds time and
time again. But when she gets stuck in a chimney fire, it seems the end
has come. Instead, she awakens to find herself unharmed in an abandoned
attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a…
Nick Flynn's book was a book I knew about for a long time, but never seemed to have the time to read. The book is a lovely memoir about how an abandoned son struggles to come to terms with the man his father has become and how that man from a wealthy and affluent family could abandon him and his older brother. Nick Flynn is surprisingly compassionate when he shares the sad and sordid reality of his father’s failed, alcoholic life.
This is one of the most moving memoirs I’ve ever read, and it comes highly recommended. Probably the most moving part of the book is how honest and apathetic Nick Flynn seems. He writes about his mother, who struggles for decades and never complains about the horrible family who never acknowledged her or her two sons, knowing that their son, Jonathan Flynn, was the boy's father. You read it…
Nick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of the trajectory that led Nick and his father onto the streets, into that shelter, and finally to each other.
Growing up in New York, the child of New Yorkers, every corner was replete with memories and histories that taught me life values. Walking through these meaningful places, I learned that the multiplicity of people’s stories and struggles to make space for themselves were what made the city and enriched everyone’s lives. The books here echo the essential politics and personal connections of those stories, and all have been deeply meaningful to me. Now, with my firm Buscada, and in my writing and art practice, I explore the way people’s stories of belonging and community, resistance and rebuilding from cities around the globe help us understand our shared humanity.
For me, this book is a touchstone for what work on cities and photography can be.
Photographer Margaret Morton does what I always wanted to see in a photo book about places, cities, and houses. She combines beautiful photographs, sensitive to intimacy and respect for the people and homes she photographs, with real oral histories. It puts the words and stories of people who live in temporary dwellings—you could call them homeless—on an equal footing with Morton’s photographs of their self-built homes.
You can tell that both the interviews and the photographs emerged from real relationships and real mutual respect.
Over a ten-year period, Margaret Morton documented the inventive ways in which homeless people in New York City have created not only places to live but also communities that offer a sense of pride, place and individuality. Morton's camera reveals the ingenuity of builders who have constructed homes out of discarded materials such as warehouse pallets, junked auto parts and demolition scrap. Her luminous photographs bring to light the determination and aesthetic sensibilities of all but forgotten people whose temporary encampments became permanent homes until they were demolished by the city. Seen together with compelling oral histories told by the…
I love middle-grade books (for eight to twelve-year-olds), which is why I write in that genre. My Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy is sprinkled with magical adventures, but each one has real-life kids struggling with real-life problems and finding real-world solutions. I believe that books whose characters experience magical elements along with themes of friendship, perseverance, and self-acceptance will help them learn, as I did when I was a young reader, that whatever troubles they're experiencing, other kids have those troubles too, that they're not alone, and that help is possible.
I almost didn’t include this Newbery Medal winner book by Louis Sachar on my list of magical middle-grade books set in the real world. Is it really magical? Is it set in the real world? With a fourteen-year-old protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is it even middle-grade?
Here’s why my love for this book won out. Sachar weaves together a quirky, complex story, just interconnected enough to qualify as “magical.” The setting, a juvenile prison camp with a sadistic warden, is “real-world” enough. And Stanley, though emotionally young for fourteen, is a kind, thoughtful kid well worth rooting for.
About halfway through reading, its darkness almost prompted me to lay this book aside. I’m so glad I didn’t. In the end, its themes of perseverance, hope, and redemption shone through.
WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
SELECTED AS ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake) he is not surprised. Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. Why? The evil warden claims that it's character building, but this is a lie. It's up…
