Poverty Fiction

Tomas is excited when he sees a poster for a bike race. But he doesn't have a bike! Luckily, he meets Miles, who has an old rusty bike that they can fix up. The boys become friends, but why won't Miles tell Tomas where he lives or invite him over? How are Miles and Tomas supposed to be a team when one of them is keeping secrets?

It's not fair. Greg seems to skip soccer practice at least once a week. But everyone else has to go, or else! One day, Caleb and Ian decide to figure out where Greg goes when he's not at practice. They follow him straight to a creepy old warehouse. What's inside? And what is Greg's big secret?

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle. But once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them by going straight to Coldtown's opulent heart.

When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that Peter can hardly dare to believe it. But it is - all of it - true.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible....

Go to school. Get good grades. Stay out of trouble. That's the mandate for most kids. But Nick Gautier isn't the average teenager. He's a boy with a destiny not even he fully understands. And his first mandate is to stay alive while everyone, even his own father, tries to kill him. He's learned to annihilate zombies and raise the dead, divination and clairvoyance, so why is learning to drive and keep a girlfriend so dang hard? But that isn't the primary skill he has to master. Survival is.

Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life - and that of her parents - all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No's presence forces Lou's family to come to terms with a secret tragedy.

Smart, edgy, hilarious, and unabashedly raunchy New York Times best-selling author Samantha Irby explodes in her uproarious first collection of essays. Irby laughs her way through tragicomic mishaps, neuroses, and taboos as she struggles through adulthood: chin hairs, depression, bad sex, failed relationships, masturbation, taco feasts, inflammatory bowel disease, and more. Updated with her favorite Instagramable, couch-friendly recipes, this much-beloved romp is treat for anyone in dire need of Irby's infamous, scathing wit, and poignant candor.

Help young listeners understand the problems of poverty and hunger in Third World countries with this powerful, moving story by award-winning author Gary Paulsen. An orphan in a Mexican border town meets an American army sergeant - and hopes the sergeant will help him cross the border to a better life in the United States.

Think you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders? Nick Gautier was born to bring about the end of the world.... It's not easy being the heir of a demon overlord. But in Invision, Nick is determined to thwart his destiny and get into a good college. To be more than his genetics and prophecy foretell. No one is ever going to tell this stubborn Cajun who and what he really is. Or how to live his life. Not even the Fates of the Universe.

Mosca Mye and Eponymous Clent are at it again. Escaping disaster by the skin of their teeth, they find refuge in Toll, a strange gateway town where visitors may neither enter nor leave without paying a price. By day, the city is well-mannered and orderly; by night, it’s host to rogues and villains. Wherever there’s a plot, there’s sure to be treachery, and wherever there’s treachery, there’s sure to be trouble - and where there’s trouble, well, Clent, Mosca, and Saracen can’t be far behind.

From the New York Times best-selling creator of the Vanderbeekers series comes a triumphant tale of friendship, healing, and the power of believing in ourselves told from the perspective of biracial sixth-graders June and Tyrell, two children living in a homeless shelter. As their friendship grows over a shared love of classical music, June and Tyrell confront a new housing policy that puts homeless families in danger.

Kabir has been in jail since the day he was born because his mom is serving time for a crime she didn't commit. He's never met his dad, so the only family he's got are their cellmates, and the only place he feels the least bit free is in the classroom, where his kind teacher regales him with stories of the wonders of the outside world. Then one day a new warden arrives and announces Kabir is too old to stay. He gets handed over to a long-lost "uncle" who unfortunately turns out to be a fraud and intends to sell Kabir. So Kabir does the only thing he can - run.

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him - people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George.

Life in a small Appalachian town is not easy. Cash lost his mother to an opioid addiction and his Papaw is dying slowly from emphysema. Dodging drug dealers and watching out for his best friend, Delaney, is second nature. He's been spending his summer mowing lawns while she works at Dairy Queen. But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he has to leave behind.

In an unnamed Third World country, in the not-so-distant future, three “dumpsite boys” make a living picking through the mountains of garbage on the outskirts of a large city. One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences.

Nick has his driver's license and he's not afraid to use it. But turning 16 isn't what he thought it would be. While other boys his age are worried about prom dates and applying for college, Nick is neck deep in enemies out to stop him from living another day. No longer sure if he can trust anyone, his only ally seems to be the one person he's been told will ultimately kill him. But life spent serving the undead is anything except ordinary. And those out to get him have summoned an ancient force so powerful even the gods fear it.

Caitlin can't afford to leave this dreamland, this half-sleeping state where everything and everyone can be kept at arm's length. Because then she'd have to face the ugly truth about her relationship with Rogerson: magnetic, fascinating--and very dangerous--Rogerson. What is it about Rogerson Biscoe...and why can't she leave him?

Told from the perspective of a bully, this book explores themes of homelessness, while celebrating kindness, friendship and the potential everyone has to change for the good. Inspired by Onjali's own childhood experiences of growing up in London and seeing the impact of homelessness on those around her, The Night Bus Hero follows an unlikely friendship between our narrator and Thomas - who lives in the park. Can they get to the bottom of some unusual thefts taking place across the city and discover what it takes to be a real hero?

I’m not just Allie Grace anymore. A beast slumbers beneath the surface of my skin. I have new urges and impulses. Not to mention a hot temper that flares up at the slightest provocation. But that’s not all - apparently, I’m also mated. It’s like a part of my soul has been sucked out, cleaved in two, and deposited into Jared and Clay. The strange otherworldly force tying us together is all but impossible to ignore. I try my best, though. At least until other packs catch wind of the new wolf in Forest Grove. The one who has not yet chosen her pack.