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Is it too much to ask for an ordinary, boring life? Bai Jian is a typical Chinese boy growing up in a big city. But his life is far from typical: his mother abandoned him when he was a baby, and his father, Hei Jian, is always out of work, always fighting with his long parade of girlfriends, always getting the two of them involved in some harebrained scheme. The latest idea involves spending every last dime they have putting Bai Jian up in a posh boarding school so that Hei Jian can leave, a...

Belle draws the best owl in class, but she doesn’t say why: she sees them in the park, where she and her mother sleep. Belle and her mother used to have a house, a table, and chairs, a home like any of Belle’s classmates’. But things changed. Now, they curl up each night in a blanket nest in their old blue car, with their things packed in around them.  The first night was hard, but they’ve never been alone: their friend the owl has always been nearby, hooting in its tree, looking out for them....

A gripping new novel in verse by the author of the Printz Honor-winning Starfish, featuring a poverty-stricken boy who bravely rides out all the storms life keeps throwing at him Joe Oak is used to living on unsteady ground. His mom can’t be depended on as she never stays around long once she gets “the itch,” and now he and his beloved grandmother find themselves without a home. Fortunately, Joe has an outlet in his journals and drawings and takes comfort from the lessons of comic books—superhe...

Butter O'Bryan has been told there are ghosts on Howlers Beach, but are there? Howlers Beach, 1932 Butter O'Bryan lives in a Very Small Castle with his father and three aunts - Aunt Elephant, Aunt Cake and Aunt Peculiar. These aren't their real names, of course, just as Butter's father isn't really called 'Pongo'. And even though Butter is only twelve years old, and the grandson of one of Australia's most successful Jam Kings, he is very aware of the hardship many people are experiencing. Bu...

Shaozhen has no intention of staying in his remote Henan village and becoming another poor farmer: he'll finish school, and then, hopefully, work in a factory in one of the major cities, just like his father. But when Shaozhen returns home for the summer holidays, imagining days filled with nothing but playing basketball with his friends, he's in for a shock. The worst drought in over sixty years threatens the crops that the entire village relies on for income. As the water situation becomes dir...

Abandoned on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, thirteen-year-old Alex joins a group of children like him and finds himself adapting to his new life.

A simplified retelling of the Margaret Sidney story in which a fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman.