Aunt Pearl arrives one day pushing a shopping cart full of her worldly goods. Her sister Rose has invited her to come live with her family. Six-year-old Marta is happy to meet her aunt, who takes her out to look for treasure on garbage day, and who shows her camp group how to decorate a coffee table with bottle caps. But almost immediately, Pearl and Rose start to clash - over Pearl's belongings crammed into the house, and over Rose's household rules....

"A homeless girl and her Ma, always hiding from the authorities, take shelter in an abandoned mill in the center of a big city, but when developers make plans to knock the mill down, everything changes, prompting the girl to wonder what kind of ghosts are haunting both the mill and her mother"-- Provided by publisher.

"While learning about September 11th, fifth grader Dèja (born after the attacks) realizes how much the events still color her world"-- Provided by publisher.

Robert "Cali" Callahan, seventeen, gets swept up into the private-investigator business and must deal with the ramifications of looking for fellow runaways who may not want to be found--and with falling in love with one of them.

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

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.

In an attempt to honor their late mother's request, 19-year-old Gage and his sister Ari leave their guardian's home and end up crashing with friends or at shelters.

Opin, his brother Emjay, and their mother live in a car and are trying to get to Los Angeles where they hope an uncle and a new life are waiting, but even after finding a stray dog, Opin's longing for a stable home intensifies as his brother's reckless ways hit a new high.

Four orphaned siblings take refuge in an abandoned boxcar that becomes their home, as they hide from their "villainous" grandfather.

Sixteen-year-old Indy struggles to conceal that she is pregnant by rape and then, turned out by relatives, must find a way to survive on her own in Nassau.