Title: No Place to Be: Voices of Homeless Children

Author: Judith Berck

Publisher: Houghton, 1991

Grade Level: 7+

Awards: ALA

Description: An informational book detailing the grave situation facing homeless children and their parents, who live in shelters and welfare hotels.

Title: The Family Under The Bridge

Author: Natalie S. Carlson

Publisher: Harper, 1958

Awards: Newbery Honor, ALA

Descriptions: When Armand discovers that three children and their mother have invaded his place under the bridge, he tries to avoid becoming part of their life.

Title: Rich and Famous Like My Mom

Author: Hila Colman

Publisher: Crown, 1988

Grade Level: 5-6

Description: The over privileged, lonely daughter of a famous and popular singer seeks to find her own identity through a friendship with a street lady.

Title: Monkey Island

Author: Paula Fox

Publisher: Orchard, 1991

Grade Level: 5-6

Awards: ALA

Description: Forced to live on the streets of New York after his mother disappears from their hotel room, 11-year old Clay is befriended by two men who help him survive.

Title: Somewhere Around the Corner

Author: Jackie French

Publisher: Holt, 1995

Grade Level: 7+

While participating in a political demonstration, a young Australian girl finds herself transported back in time to a homeless camp during the Depression where she discovers that the actions of one person can make a difference.

Title: December Stillness

Author: Mary Downing Hahn

Publisher: Clarion, 1988

Grade Level: 5-6, 7+

Awards: CA

Descriptions: Fourteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam War Veteran who spends his days in her surburban library, though the man makes it clear he wants to be left alone.

Title: The Planet of Junior Brown

Author: Virginia Hamilton

Publisher: Macmillan, 1971

Grade Level: 7+

Awards: Newbery Honor, ALA

Description: A boy who is the leader in New York’s underground world of homeless children protects the vulnerable friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester. 

Title: Sam and the Moon Queen

Author: Alison Cragin Herzig and Jane Lawerence Mali

Publisher: Clarion, 1990

Grade Level: 5-6

Description: Sympathetic to a homeless girl’s plight, Sam tries to help her find food for herself and medical aid for her dog.

Title: The Wild Children

Author: Felice Holman

Publisher: Scribner’s, 1983

Grade Level: 5-6

Description: Left behind when his family is arrested after the Bolshevik Revolution, Alex falls in with a gang of other desperate homeless children, though he never loses his hope for a better life.

Title: Darnell Rock Reporting

Author: Walter Dean Myers

Publishers: Delacorte, 1994

Grade Level: 5-6, 7+

Description: Thirteen-year-old Darnell’s twin sister and other members of the Corner Crew have doubts about his work on the school newspaper, but the article he writes about a homeless man that changes his attitude about school.

Title: Homeless Children

Author: Karen O’Connor

Publisher: Lucent Books, 1989

Grade Level: 5-6

Description: Photographs and text focus on the urban homeless and what is being done to help them.

Title: Tails of the Bronx

Author: Jill Pinkwater

Publisher: Macmillan, 1991

Grade Level: 5-6, 7+

Description: In their search for a group of missing cats, a group of children in the Bronx encounters the problems of homelessness firsthand.

Title: Homecoming

Author: Cynthia Voight

Publisher: Atheneum, 1981

Grade Level: 5-6

Description: Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity.