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Ayarbe, Heidi
Compromised
With her con-man father in prison, fifteen-year-old Maya sets out from Reno, Nevada, for Boise, Idaho, hoping to stay out of foster care by finding an aunt she never knew existed, but a fellow runaway complicates all of her scientifically-devised plans.
452 p. 2010
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Bowler, Tim
Blade
A fourteen-year-old British street person with extraordinary powers of observation and self-control must face murderous thugs connected with a past he has tried to forget, when his skills with a knife earned him the nickname, Blade.
231 p. 2009
Teen Fiction Book
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Brezenoff, Steven
Brooklyn, Burning
Sixteen-year-old Kid, who lives on the streets of Brooklyn, loves Felix, a guitarist and junkie who disappears, leaving Kid the prime suspect in an arson investigation, but a year later Scout arrives, giving Kid a second chance to be in a band and find true love.
202 p. 2011
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Cupala, Holly
Don't Breathe a Word
Joy Delamere is suffocating from severe asthma, overprotective parents, and an emotionally-abusive boyfriend when she escapes to the streets of nearby Seattle and falls in with a "street family" that teaches her to use a strength she did not know she had.
299 p. 2011
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Griffin, Paul
Ten Mile River
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.
188 p. 2008
Teen Fiction Book
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Hannah, Rufus
A Bum Deal : an Unlikely Journey from Hopeless to Humanitarian
Shares the true story of the man once known as "Rufus the Stunt Bum," his journey to sobriety, his attempt to bring those who profited from his abuse to justice, and his current work as an advocate for the homeless.
238 p. 2010
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)
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Karp, Brianna
The Girl's Guide to Homelessness
Karp delivers a heartwrenching and darkly funny memoir about her experience becoming homeless after losing her corporate job in the Great Recession.
344 p. 2011
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)
Other formats available |
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Lopez, Steve
The Soloist
The true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who becomes schizophrenic and homeless, and his friendship with Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles columnist who discovers and writes about him in the newspaper.
273 p. 2008
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)
Other formats available |
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Millard, Glenda
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark
Skip, an eleven-year-old runaway, becomes friends with Billy, a homeless man, and together they flee a war-torn Australian city with six-year-old Max and camp out at a seaside amusement park, where they are joined by Tia, a fifteen-year-old ballerina, and her baby.
180 p. 2010
Teen Fiction Book
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Mulligan, Andy
Trash
Fourteen-year-olds Raphael and Gardo team up with a younger boy, Rat, to figure out the mysteries surrounding a bag Raphael finds during their daily life of sorting through trash in a third-world country's dump.
232 p. 2010
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Mun, Nami
Miles from Nowhere
Joon's parents have crumbled under the weight of her father's infidelity; he has left the family, and mental illness has rendered her mother nearly catatonic. So Joon, at the age of thirteen, decides she would be better off on her own, a choice that commences a harrowing and tragic journey that exposes the painful difficulties of a life lived on the margins.
288 p. 2009
Adult Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Murray, Liz
Breaking Night
The memoir of a young woman who at age 15 was living on the streets but survived to make it to Harvard. Murray's story was featured in the Lifetime Original Movie "Homeless to Harvard."
334 p. 2010
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)
Other formats available |
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Niz, Susan
Kara Lost
Sixteen-year-old Kara flees the suffocation of her suburban life, trading in her home and family for a gritty, anonymous existence on the streets of Minneapolis. She begins a perilous journey, nai¨ve, well-intentioned, and isolated as she struggles to reconnect with her older sister.
231 p. 2011
Teen Fiction Book
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Parkinson, Siobhan
Long Story Short
Fourteen-year-old Jono and his eight-year-old sister Julie run away when, soon after their grandmother's death, their alcoholic mother hits Julie, but when the police find them in Galway, Jono learns he is in big trouble.
151 p. 2011
Teen Fiction Book
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Paulsen, Gary
Paintings from the Cave
Meet Jake, who lives in a neighborhood controlled by street violence and fear. He meets a sculptor across the street, and his eyes are opened to another world. Or Jojo, who's closer to her three dogs than to her foster family. When Jojo tries to help another girl who needs a friend, the dogs know what to do. Or Jamie, Erik, and Grandpa, who make up an unusual family.
161 p. 2011
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Quick, Matthew
Sorta Like a Rock Star
Although seventeen-year-old Amber Appleton is homeless, living in a school bus with her unfit mother, she is a relentless optimist who visits the elderly at a nursing home, teaches English to Korean Catholic women with the use of rhythm and blues music, and befriends a solitary Vietnam veteran and his dog, but eventually she experiences one burden more than she can bear and slips into a deep depression.
355 p. 2010
Teen Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Rao, Cheeni
In Hanuman's Hands
Bringing India whole-heartedly into America, Rao weaves his own story of Western culture clash with mythic tales of his Hindu ancestors who served in the ancestral temples of Kali. With Hanuman as his loyal companion, the author finds his way back to recovery at a halfway house in Chicago's Southside run by a mug named Tats and shared by an unforgettable gang of streetwise characters.
399 p. 2009
Adult Nonfiction Book (Biography)
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Vachss, Andrew H
Haiku
Abandoning his duties as a sensei after his reckless arrogance causes the death of a protege, the war-weary Ho slowly attracts a motley band of followers before launching a desperate blackmail scheme that is complicated by the planned destruction of a building.
213 p. 2009
Adult Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Vigan, Delphine de
No and Me
Precocious thirteen-year-old Lou meets a homeless eighteen-year-old girl on the streets of Paris and Lou's life is forever changed.
244 p. 2010
Teen Fiction Book
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Youme
Pitch Black
"On the subway, do ever notice that people are always looking, but they only see what they want to? Things can be sitting right in front of them and still they can't see it." That's your guide Anthony speaking. He'll show you how he lives in the tunnels underneath the New York City subway system -- that is, if you'll let him.
[64] p. 2008
Adult Nonfiction Book Graphic Novels
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