BOOK LISTS FOR YOUNG READERS 

PICTURE BOOKS

about poverty

YOUTH FICTION

about coming of age

YOUNG ADULT

about poverty

Ruben feels like he is the only kid without a bike. His friend Sergio reminds him that his birthday is coming, but Ruben knows that the kinds of birthday gifts he and Sergio receive are not the same. After all, when Ruben's mom sends him to Sonny's corner store for groceries, sometimes she doesn't have enough money for everything on the list. So when Ruben sees a dollar bill fall out of someone's purse, he picks it up and puts it in his pocket. But when he gets home, he discovers it's not one dollar or even five or ten--it's a hundred-dollar bill, more than enough for a new bike just like Sergio's! But what about the crossed-off groceries? And what about the woman who lost her money?

Maribeth Boelts

A Bike Like Sergio's

A child, her waitress mother, and her grandmother save dimes to buy a comfortable armchair after all their furniture is lost in a fire.

Vera Williams

A Chair for My Mother

As a young boy, Bao Phi awoke early, hours before his father's long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. Between hope-filled casts, Bao's father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam.

Bao Phi

A Different Pond

Jeremy, who longs to have the black high tops that everyone at school seems to have but his grandmother cannot afford, is excited when he sees them for sale in a thrift shop and decides to buy them even though they are the wrong size.

Maribeth Boelts

Those Shoes 

A boy spends the day with Uncle Willie in the soup kitchen where he works preparing and serving food for the hungry.

DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan

Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen

A young boy rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to appreciate the beauty in everyday things.

Matt de la Peña

Last Stop on Market Street

Maddi's fridge is almost empty, while Sophia's fridge is full of food. How can Sophia help her friend Maddi without breaking her promise not to tell anyone?

Lois Brandt

Maddi's Fridge 

Cassie Louise Lightfoot, only eight years old and in third grade, dreams of flying as she sleeps on “Tar Beach”, the rooftop of her building. If she can fly, then she can fly over bridges and buildings and claim them for her own. This is important to her because her father, a steel worker, is not allowed in the union because of racism. It makes finding work during the winter difficult for her father, stressing the family financially. But tonight, her family is celebrating with a picnic on the beach with their neighbors. 

Faith Ringgold

Tar Beach

Despite their own poverty since Daddy died, Mama tells nine-year-old James Otis they need to help Sarah, whose family lost everything in a fire.

Patricia C. McKissack

What is Given from the Heart

Callie and her family are moving from their house to an apartment, so they're having a yard sale. It can be hard to let things go, but in the end, it's who you have - not what you have - that counts.

Eve Bunting

Yard Sale

After watching a homeless man collect empty soft drink cans for the redemption money, a young boy decides to collect cans himself to earn money for a skateboard until he has a change of heart.

Laura Williams

The Can Man

A homeless boy who lives in an airport with his father, moving from terminal to terminal and trying not to be noticed, is given hope when he sees a trapped bird find its freedom.

Eve Bunting

Fly Away Home

When an Ogre comes to town demanding a bride, the mayor sacrifices the homeless girl with no name that everyone thinks is a pest and a bother, but she finds a way to outwit them all.

Brock Cole

Good Enough to Eat

Just before Christmas, when Frances sees a sad-eyed organ grinder and his monkey performing near her apartment, she cannot stop thinking about them, wondering where they go at night, and wishing she could do something to help.

Kate DiCamillo

Great Joy

A homeless bear living in a city has a hard time getting by, but when a little girl makes friends with him, his life becomes brighter.

Jean-François Dumont

I Am a Bear

A wordless picture book that depicts a homeless woman who is not seen by all the life around her, except by a little boy. Ultimately, in a gesture of compassion, this boy approaches this woman, in an exchange where he sees her and she experiences being seen.

Michael Genhart

I See You

When Lizzie and Ben discover a homeless lady living in their neighborhood, they must reconcile their desire to help her with their mother's admonition not to talk to strangers.

Ann McGovern

The Lady in the Box

A lonely dog finally finds a home after he makes friends with a woman who works at a homeless shelter.

Steven Michael King

Mutt Dog!

James and Bob are the best of friends--everywhere James goes, Bob the cat goes with him. But life wasn't always so happy for the scarf-loving tabby. Inspired by the heartwarming true story of James Bowen.

James Brown

My Name is Bob

Pierre, a pampered poodle, is lonely, so he sets out to find his friends and bring them home

Andrea Beck

Pierre's Friends

Since she left Jamaica for America after her father died, Zettie lives in a car with her mother while they both go to school and plan for a real home.

Monica Gunning

A Shelter in Our Car

Despite living in separate shelters, a little girl and her parents find time to be together, demonstrating that even in the most trying of times they are still a loving and committed family.

Brenda Reeves Sturgis

Still a Family

A teddy bear, lost by the little boy who loves him, still feels loved after being rescued by a homeless man.

David McPhail

The Teddy Bear

After being left by the side of a road with nothing but her favorite sock toy, Tupelo meets a pack of dogs led by Garbage Pail Tex as they are wishing for new homes, then joins them as they catch a passing train and share stories of dog heroes.

Melissa Sweet

Tupelo Rides the Rails

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MARTIN REED

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Art Director

JOSIE LANE

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Product Manager

CARLA JONES

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MARTIN REED

Secretly providing for himself and a beloved grandfather who is succumbing to dementia, young Arlo is placed in the care of a social worker and runs away to find and connect with his only other family member.

Sarah Sullivan

All That's Missing

When sixteen-year-old Thankful Curtis must leave Bright Island, Maine, for the first time in 1937, she has trouble adjusting to life on the mainland, new people, and "proper schooling," and yearns for her days of farming with her father and sailing.

Mabel Louise Robinston

Bright Island

Recounts the events that occur at the end of seventh grade, when a group of friends plan to trick Carlos, an annoying "problem" student who says he is visited by aliens, while they are on a field trip in the mountains of New Hampshire.

Kevin Emerson

Carlos Is Gonna Get It

The oldest Mariss brother, fourteen-year-old Dewey, attempts to be the "embodiment of responsibility" as he juggles the management of the family's bicycle repair business while sharing the household and farm duties with his siblings after a sudden energy crisis strands their parents far from home.

Leslie Connor

Crunch

In a small, Virginia town, sixth-grader Jessie Lou Ferguson has a crush on the hugely popular Conrad Parker Smith, and when he suddenly develops a medical problem and the teacher asks Jessie Lou to help him, they become friends, to her surprise.

Phoebe Stone

Deep Down Popular: A Novel

Ally, Bree, and Jack meet at the one place the Great Eclipse can be seen in totality, each carrying the burden of different personal problems, which become dim when compared to the task they embark upon and the friendship they find.

Wendy Mass

Every Soul A Star: A Novel

Ever since they were Snotsippers, Jack and the girl have fought, until one day she steals his bike and as he and the Amigos try to recover it, Jack realizes that he is growing up and must eventually leave the "goodlands and badlands of Hokey Pokey."

Jerry Spinelli

Hokey Pokey

Longing for an escape from her extended Filipino family, Lou plans to build a tiny house on land she inherited from her father, but difficulties quickly arise.

 Mae Respicio

The House That Lou Built

Twelve-year-old Isobel is unhappy about spending the summer of 1918 at her aunt's home in Hollywood with her mother and sister until her cousin, Ranger, involves the girls in creating the perfect film and, when her father returns from the war, his serious injury becomes their inspiration.

J.B. Cheaney

I Don't Know How The Story Ends

During a summer visit, twelve-year-old Lucy must come to terms with both her grandmother's failing memory and how her mentally-challenged neighbor will impact her popularity when both enter the same middle school in the fall.

Valerie Hobbs

The Last Best Days of Summer

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M.C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

Virginia Hamilton

M.C. Higgins, The Great

The school year is over, and it is summer in Atlanta. The sky is blue, the sun is blazing, and the days brim with possibility. But Leah feels lost. She has been this way since one terrible afternoon a year ago when everything changed. Since that day, her parents have become distant, her friends have fallen away, and Leah's been adrift and alone. Then she meets Jasper, a girl unlike anyone she has ever known. There's something mysterious about Jasper, almost magical. And Jasper, Leah discovers, is also lost. Together, the two girls carve out a place for themselves, a hideaway in the overgrown spaces of Atlanta, away from their parents and their hardships, somewhere only they can find. But as the days of this magical June start to draw to a close, and the darker realities of their lives intrude once more, Leah and Jasper have to decide how real their friendship is, and whether it can be enough to save them both.

Laurel Snyder

My Jasper June

Forced to spend the summer with her family in rural Vermont, eleven-year-old Megan, a rebellious, immature urbanite gains self-confidence and maturity as she and her dog survive being lost on the Appalachian Trail.

Jane A. Kelley

Nature Girl

In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.

Jewell Parker Rhodes

Ninth Ward

As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends, an abusive father, and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him until he finds an ally in Lil Spicer--a fiery young lady. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon's birds, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage.

Gary D. Schmidt

Okay For Now

When an eleven-year-old boy takes over a friend's newspaper route in July, 1959, in Memphis, his debilitating stutter makes for a memorable month.

Vince Vawter

Paperboy

Charlie, twelve, who has autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, must endure a cross-country trip with his siblings and a strange babysitter to visit their father, who will undergo brain surgery.                        

Sally J. Pla

The Someday Birds

Twelve-year-old Sarah writes letters to her hero, To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch, for help understanding her mentally ill mother, her first real crush, and life in her small Texas town, all in the course of one momentous summer.

Karen Harrington

Sure Signs of Crazy

A fictionalized account of Zora Neale Hurston's childhood with her best friend Carrie, in Eatonville, Florida, as they learn about life, death, and the differences between truth, lies, and pretending. Includes an annotated bibliography of the works of Zora Neale Hurston, a short biography of the author, and information about Eatonville, Florida.                                                         

Victoria Bond

Zora and Me 

Lucy Peevey, twelve, and her best friend Cam are perfecting the robot that could win a competition, a scholarship, and a way out of Sunnyside Trailer Park when Lucy's mother goes off her medication and her manic-depressive disorder goes out of control.

Erin Moulton

Chasing the Milky Way

As their mother's manic-depression grows worse, eleven-year-old Esther and her sister Ruth visit various churches hoping to find their father, a preacher named Ezekiel who left them seven years before in 1966.

Ann Haywood Leal

A Finders-Keepers Place

Eleven-year-old Footer and her friends investigate when a nearby farm is burned, the farmer murdered, and his children disappear, but as they follow the clues, Footer starts having flashbacks and wonders if she is going crazy like her mother, who is back in a mental institution near their Mississippi home.

Susan Vaught

Footer Davis Probably is Crazy

In Victorian London, a boy known as Joe Rat scrounges for valuables which he gives to "Mother," a criminal mastermind who considers him a favorite, but a chance meeting with a runaway girl and "the Madman" transforms all their lives.

Mark Barrett

Joe Rat

After their mother dies of typhoid, Verna and her younger sister Carlie move with their father, a psychiatrist, and stern Aunt Maude to an asylum for the mentally ill in early-twentieth-century Michigan, where new ideas in the treatment of mental illness are being proposed, but old prejudices still hold sway.

Gloria Whelan

The Locked Garden

A thirteen-year-old boy's life revolves around hiding his obsessive compulsive disorder until a girl at school, who is unkindly nicknamed Psycho Sara, notices him for the first time and he gets a mysterious note that changes everything.

Wesley King

OCDaniel

In 1919. Mama is ill. Father has taken a job abroad. Nanny Jane is too busy to pay any attention to Henrietta and the things she sees - or thinks she sees - in the shadows of their new home, Hope House. All alone, with only stories for company, Henry discovers that Hope House is full of strange secrets: a forgotten attic, ghostly figures, mysterious firelight that flickers in the trees beyond the garden. One night she ventures into the darkness of Nightingale Wood. What she finds there will change her whole world...

Lucy Strange

The Secret of Nightingale Wood

After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.

Sarah Weeks

So B. It: A Novel

Four years after Alfie Summerfield's father left London to become a soldier in World War I he has not returned but Alfie, now nine, is shining shoes at King's Cross Station when he happens to learn that his father is at a nearby hospital being treated for shell shock.

John Boyne

Stay Where You Are & Then Leave

Twelve-year-old Sarah writes letters to her hero, To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch, for help understanding her mentally ill mother, her first real crush, and life in her small Texas town, all in the course of one momentous summer.

Karen Harrington

Sure Signs of Crazy

When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren't there, Della worries that it’s happening again—that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time. With her daddy struggling to save the farm and her mama in denial about what’s happening, it’s up to Della to heal her mama for good. And she knows just how she’ll do it: with a jar of the Bee Lady’s magic honey, which has mended the wounds and woes of Maryville, North Carolina, for generations. But when the Bee Lady says that the solution might have less to do with fixing Mama’s brain and more to do with healing her own heart, Della must learn that love means accepting her mama just as she is.

Cindy Baldwin

Where the Watermelons Grow

A little girl, who wants most of all to have a real home and to go to a regular school, hopes that the valley her family has come to, which so resembles the pattern on her treasured blue willow plate, will be their permanent home.

Doris Gates

Blue Willow

In 1835, when his father is put in a Philadelphia debtor's prison, 12-year-old chess prodigy Rufus Goodspeed is relieved to be recruited to secretly operate a chess-playing automaton named The Turk, but soon questions the fate of his predecessors and his own safety.

Gary Blackwood

Curiosity

Twelve-year--old Lowen Grover, a budding comic-book artist, is still reeling from the shooting death of his friend Abe when he stumbles across an article about a former mill town giving away homes for just one dollar. It not only seems like the perfect escape from Flintlock and all of the awful memories associated with the city, but an opportunity for his mum to run her very own business. Fortunately, his family is willing to give it a try. But is the Dollar Program too good to be true? The homes are in horrible shape, and the locals are less than welcoming. Will Millville and the dollar house be the answer to the Grovers' troubles? Or will they find they've traded one set of problems for another? From the author of Small as an Elephant and Paper Things comes a heart-tugging novel about guilt and grief, family and friendship, and, above all, community.

Jennifer Jacobson

The Dollar Kids

Eleven-year-old Fern helps to take care of her impoverished family by foraging for food in the forest, but when a fracking company rolls into town, she realizes that her peaceful woods and her family's livelihood could be threatened.

Nicole Lea Helget

The End of the Wild

In New England in the late nineteenth-century, a fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman and his young son.

Margaret Sidney

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

After her father's landscaping business fails and the family loses their house, sixth-grader Griselda Zaragoza follows her sister's example and begins selling Alma cosmetics while hiding her changed circumstances from friends.

Jennifer Torres

The Fresh New Face of Griselda

In the early 1960s, twelve-year-old songwriter Livy Two Weems dreams of seeing the world beyond the Maggie Valley, North Carolina, holler where she lives in poverty with her parents and eight brothers and sisters, but understands that she must put family first.

Kerry Madden

Gentle's Holler

With love and determination befitting the "world's greatest family," twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan during the Great Depression.

Christopher Paul Curtis

The Mighty Miss Malone

A young Negro boy learns the pain of humiliation and anger when his father is given an unjust jail sentence for stealing a ham from a white man. Learning to read and to discover that things do not die but become part of other things brings the youngster new hope.

William Howard Armstrong

Sounder

Ten-year-old Rupert Brown comes from an ordinary family. They live in a small house in the poorest section of Steelville, Ohio, and have little money or food. So when Rupert inadvertently finds himself spending Christmas at Turgid Rivers' house--the richest boy in town--he is blown away to discover a whole other world, including all the food he can eat and wonderful prizes that he wins when the family plays games, prizes he hope to take home to his family so they can have Christmas presents for the very first time. But this windfall is short-lived when Rupert loses it all in one last game and goes home empty-handed. Each member of the Rivers family feels guilty about what happened, and unbeknownst to one another tries to make it up to Rupert in their own unique way, taking him on one unlikely adventure after another.

Polly Horvath

Very Rich

When her grandmother reveals that the daughter that she had given up for adoption is coming from America to visit her Vietnamese family, nine-year-old Binh is convinced that her newly-discovered aunt is wealthy and will take care of all the family's needs.

Carolyn Marsden

When Heaven Fell

Sixth-grader Sugar and her mother lose their beloved house and experience the harsh world of homelessness.

Joan Bauer

Almost Home

Indigo is a boy with a dream. He spends his mornings in a refrigerator box, his afternoons shoveling snow, and his nights in the basement of a homeless shelter. But during every free moment, he draws and dreams of becoming a famous artist. His best friend Jade looks after him, but she is arrested for shoplifting and he's left all alone. With his box of pencils under his arm, he sets out on a quest to search for Jade and discovers a whole new world ... full of the art he loves. His journey brings him friendship, family, and the courage to hold onto his dreams.

Melody Bremen

The Boy Who Painted the World

Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Chennai, India.

Padma Venkatranman

The Bridge Home

In 1893 New York, thirteen-year-old Maks, a newsboy, teams up with Willa, a homeless girl, to clear his older sister, Emma, from charges that she stole from the brand new Waldorf Hotel, where she works. Includes historical notes.

Avi

City of Orphans

Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent. And not much for food, either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan. Again. Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken, and he's imaginary. He has come back into Jackson's life to help him. But is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything?

Katherine Applegate

Crenshaw 

Believing his long-absent father is missing and leaving clues behind through geocaching, Zig, thirteen, relies on his love of electronics, a garage sale GPS unit, and his best friend, Gianna, to search for answers.

Kate Messener

The Exact Location of Home

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.

Mike Lupica

Fast Break

Thirteen-year-old Jeff's life spirals downward into homelessness after his alcoholic mother loses her job.

Tony Abbott

The Great Jeff

Six imaginative schoolmates embark on a game in which they pretend to be gypsies, but when one of the boys runs away and takes up with a group of homeless people, the game threatens to become all too real.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Gypsy Game

On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

Blue Balliett

Hold Fast

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Louis Sacher

Holes

Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother's calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.

Barbara O'Connor

How to Steal a Dog: A Novel

Since her father's death, Cora, twelve, longs for a permanent home for herself, her special-needs sister, and their mother while navigating middle school and studying trees using her father's field notes.

Melissa Sarno

Just Under the Clouds

Twelve-and-three-quarter-year-old Felix Knutsson has a knack for trivia. His favorite game show is Who, What, Where, When; he even named his gerbil after the host. Felix's mom, Astrid, is loving but can't seem to hold on to a job. So when they get evicted from their latest shabby apartment, they have to move into a van. Astrid swears him to secrecy; he can't tell anyone about their living arrangement, not even Dylan and Winnie, his best friends at his new school. If he does, she warns him, he'll be taken away from her and put in foster care. As their circumstances go from bad to worse, Felix gets a chance to audition for a junior edition of Who, What, Where, When, and he's determined to earn a spot on the show. Winning the cash prize could make everything okay again. But things don't turn out the way he expects... Susin Nielsen deftly combines humor, heartbreak, and hope in this moving story about people who slip through the cracks in society, and about the power of friendship and community to make all the difference.

Susin Nielsen-Fernlund

No Fixed Address

Valli has always been afraid of the lepers living on the other side of the train tracks in the coal town of Jharia, India, so when a chance encounter with a doctor reveals she also has leprosy, Valli rejects help and begins an uncertain life on the streets.

Deborah Ellis

No Ordinary Day

When authorities threaten to take Sophie, twelve, from Charles who has been her guardian since she was one and both survived a shipwreck, the pair goes to Paris to try to find Sophie's mother, and they are aided by Matteo and his band of "rooftoppers."

Katherine Rundell

Rooftoppers

Fleeing from a cruel step-father, eleven-year-old Robin takes his baby brother and finds shelter with street boys living in a church in a tenement area of New York City.

Barbara Brooks Wallace

Secret in St. Something

Piper's life is turned upside down when her family moves into a shelter in a whole new city. She misses her house, her friends, and her privacy--and she hates being labeled the homeless girl at her new school. But while Hope House offers her new challenges, it also brings new friendships, like the girls in Firefly Girls Troop 423 and a sweet street dog named Baby. So when Baby's person goes missing, Piper knows she has to help. But helping means finding the courage to trust herself and her new friends, no matter what anyone says about them--before Baby gets taken away for good. Told in alternating perspectives, this classic and heartfelt animal tale proclaims the importance of hope, the power of story, and the true meaning of home.

Bobbie Pryon

Stay

To escape rumored terrors in Kansas, New Yorkers Jack and Frances, eleven, and Frances's brother Harold, seven, jump off an orphan train in 1899 and help new friend Alexander to build Wanderville, a safe place for homeless children

Wendy McClure

Wanderville

Twelve-year-old Annabelle must learn to stand up for what's right in the face of a manipulative and violent new bully who targets people Annabelle cares about, including a homeless World War I veteran.

Lauren Wolk

Wolf Hollow: A Novel

Although Emma Thomas's secret abusive home life has been exposed and her tormentor eliminated, she is still haunted by her experience, and must learn to reclaim her life.

Rebecca Donovan

Barely Breathing

Carmel Fishkill was unceremoniously pushed into a world that refuses to offer her security, stability, love. At age thirteen, she begins to fight back. Carmel Fishkill becomes Fishkill Carmel, who deflects her tormenters with a strong left hook and conceals her secrets from teachers and social workers.

Ruth Lehrer

Being Fishkill

A seventeen year old barely escapes her abusive parents and creates a new identity that is quickly compromised when her attempt to save a young girl attracts a deadly stalker.

J.R. Johansson

Cut Me Free

Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.

A.S. King

Dig

With an incarcerated father and an estranged drug-addicted mother, Shanequa's dreams of higher education feel like a fantasy. When Shanequa gets the chance to attend a prestigious private prep school, she feels like her dreams might become reality.

Annette Daniels Taylor

Dreams on Fire

Teenage Gerald, who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, faces the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved.

Sharon M. Draper

Forged by Fire

With the rent overdue and her bipolar mother missing, seventeen-year-old Adele is forced out of her home and although she tries to maintain the pretense of normality, things rapidly fall apart.

Melody Carlson

Forgotten

As she struggles to recover and survive, seventeen-year-old homeless Charlotte "Charlie" Davis cuts herself to dull the pain of abandonment and abuse.

Kathleen Glasgow

Girl in Pieces

Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce became friends the night they met outside the police station, both deciding whether to turn their families in for abuse and mistreatment.

Brittany Cavallaro & Emily Henry

Hello Girls

When Hadley McCauley tries to take her own life after an explosive accident, her doctor, friends, family, and the investigator want to know what happened that day, but Hadley's not talking.

Amy Giles

Now is Everything

When seventeen-year-old Victoria Parker is suddenly placed into foster care, she struggles to find words for the abuse that upended her life.

Nikki Barthelmess

The Quiet You Carry

After running away from her fifth foster home, Holly, a twelve-year-old orphan, travels across the country, keeping a journal of her experiences and struggle to survive.

Wendelin Van Draanen

Runaway

A teenaged boy thrown out of his house by his abusive father goes to live with his older brother, who ran away from home years ago to escape the abuse.

Swati Avasthi

Split

Having escaped from juvenile detention centers and foster care, two teenaged boys live on their own in an abandoned shack in a New York City park, making their way by stealing, occasionally working, and trying to keep from being arrested.

Paul Griffin

Ten Mile River

Three teens, connected by their parents' bad choices, tell in their own voices of their lives and loves as Shane finds his first boyfriend, Mikayla discovers that love can be pushed too far, and Harley loses herself in her quest for new experiences.

Ellen Hopkins

Tilt