Burlington Public Library

While ten-year-old Maya attends an elite private school on scholarship her classmates are unaware that she and her family are living in a homeless shelter, but on one poignant day Maya discovers having a house is not the only way to have a home.

"Nicky Claus works with his three uncles in the Claus Brothers Toy Emporium. Uncle Hanz makes the toys, Uncle Louis checks them and Uncle Levi adds the… what's the scientific term for it? Ah, yes. The magic! For each toy made at the Emporium has a special sparkle that means it will find the child it is perfect for. One day, Nicky notices a young girl with her face pressed up to the glass. When she disappears, he follows her and finds her living...

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnate 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.

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she's already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts...

Growing up in the shadows cast by two world wars, Annabelle has lived a mostly quiet, steady life in her small Pennsylvania town. Until the day new student Betty Glengarry walks into her class. Betty quickly reveals herself to be cruel and manipulative, and while her bullying seems isolated at first, things quickly escalate, and reclusive World War I veteran Toby becomes a target of her attacks. While others have always seen Toby's strangeness, Annabelle...

"Magnus Chase has always been a troubled kid. Since his mother's mysterious death, he's lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, keeping one step ahead of the police and the truant officers. One day, he's tracked down by an uncle he barely knows-a man his mother claimed was dangerous. Uncle Randolph tells him an impossible secret: Magnus is the son of a Norse god. The Viking myths are true. The gods of Asgard are preparing for...

Armand is a homeless man in Paris who is taken in by a lonely little family which is also homeless. He has no use for the little "starlings" that would take over his heart, but he falls in love with them and helps them through the winter.

When soldiers attack a small village in Zimbabwe, Deo goes on the run with Innocent, his older, mentally disabled brother, carrying little but a leather soccer ball filled with money, and after facing prejudice, poverty, and tragedy, it is in soccer that Deo finds renewed hope.

Already a leader in New York's underground world of homeless children, Buddy Clark takes on the responsibility of protecting the overweight, emotionally disturbed friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester.

In this empathetic tale of hope, understanding, and the importance of family, young readers confront the difficult issues of poverty and the hardships of homelessness. Its inspiring young heroine is Ivy, who finds herself homeless on the streets of San Francisco when she and her father, Poppy, are evicted from their artist loft. Struggling to survive day to day, Ivy and Poppy befriend a dog who leads them to the ramshackle home of octogenarian siblings,...