Save the Children
Discover poignant stories about children overcoming adversity in this curated book list, featuring Tayari Jones's *Leaving Atlanta*, Kazuo Ishiguro's *Never Let Me Go*, and Torey Hayden's *One Child*, plus gripping fiction on resilience, family, and survival.
Book
Back Roads
by Tawni O'Dell
With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer is saddled with raising his three younger sisters, working two jobs to pay the bills, and an overactive libido that will not let him rest. A first novel. Reprint.
Book
Under the Beetle's Cellar
by Mary Willis Walker
Religious fanatics imprison a dozen school-aged hostages in their Texas compound.
Book
Leaving Atlanta
by Tayari Jones
An award-winning author makes her fiction debut with this coming-of-age story of three young black children set against the backdrop of the Atlanta child murders of 1979.
Book
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A reunion with two childhood friends draws Kathy and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the English countryside, and a confrontation with the truth about their childhoods.
Book
One Child
by Torey Hayden
Finally, a beginning . . . The time had finally come. The time I had been waiting for through all these long months that I knew sooner or later had to occur. Now it was here. She had surprised me so much by actually crying that for a moment I did nothing but look at her. Then I gathered her into my arms, hugging her tightly. She clutched onto my shirt so that I could feel the dull pain of her fingers digging into my skin. She cried and cried and cried. I held her and rocked the chair back and on its rear legs, feeling my arms and chest get damp from the tears and her hot breath and the smallness of the room.
Book
Homecoming
by Cynthia Voigt
"IT'S STILL TRUE." That's the first thing James Tillerman says to his sister Dicey every morning. It's still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillerman children somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It's still true they have to find their way, somehow, to Great-aunt Cilla's house in Bridgeport, which may be their only hope of staying together as a family. But when they get to Bridgeport, they learn that Great-aunt Cilla has died, and the home they find with her daughter, Eunice, isn't the permanent haven they've been searching for. So their journey continues to its unexpected conclusion -- and some surprising discoveries about their history, and their future.
Book
As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me
by Nanci Kincaid
From a place where you don't have to run away to find yourself, this novel's young heroine, Berry, joins the ranks of other memorable and spirited girl narrators such as Bone in "Bastard Out of Carolina," Kaye Gibbon's "Ellen Foster," Lily Owens in "The Secret Life of Bees," and Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird."
