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

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

"Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he discovers a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her--an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed. Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in the Neverwhere--a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely...

Things go dangerously wrong when a middle-class wife and mother impulsively opens her home to a homeless teen and her tiny baby.

In Chennai, india, after spending his whole life in jail with his mother, who is serving time for a crime she did not commit, nine-year-old Kabir is suddenly released and has to figure out how to survive on his own in the outside world.

As they look forward to the New York City Marathon in which their friend Mr. B. will run, the Vanderbeeker children learn that one of their good friends is homeless.

Having escaped from juvenile detention centers and foster care, two teenaged boys live on their own in an abandoned shack in a New York City park, making their way by stealing, occasionally working, and trying to keep from being arrested.

"Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter doesn't usually stop to help others, but seeing a dog next to a homeless man inspires him to give the pair some money to help. It's just Andy's luck that things don't end there. Soon after Andy's encounter with them, man and dog are attacked in the middle of the night on the street. The dog defends its new owner, and the erstwhile attacker is bitten but escapes. But the dog is quarantined and the man, Don Carrigan,...

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

In alternating chapters, teens Tasha and Josie tell how each becomes temporarily homeless and how they find strength and friendship together as they try to regain control of their lives.