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.

Since the devastating loss of her son, Danielle Steel has been dedicated to helping the homeless of San Francisco - taking to the streets herself with a small team of friends to directly provide much needed resources, from food and clothing to bedding and toiletries. Now, the notoriously private author is offering a gift far more enduring - that of her voice, in a heartfelt call for more effective action to aid this vast, tragic population. Here is...

Despite living in separate shelters, a little girl and her parents find time to be together, demonstrating that even in the most trying of times they are still a loving and committed family.

The past filled her mind even as her heart yearned for stories yet to be told . . . The mother of ten and a widow of seven years, Mary Katherine is a bundle of energy, always willing to step in and help her friends around her Amish community. Now that her last child is married, she pours her abundant creative spirit into writing stories, even as she speaks aloud to her late husband every day. Her dream is to open a bookstore with an English friend,...

After watching a homeless man collect empty soft drink cans for the redemption money, a young boy decides to collect cans himself to earn money for a skateboard until he has a change of heart.

When an elderly homeless woman is found dead on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, she's wearing something that holds the key to her identity but also opens up a mystery. Embroidered on her blouse is her will, in which she bequeaths everything she owns to her niece-Emily Hame, a member of the Monday bunch at Betsy Devonshire's Crewel World needlework shop! Emily's aunt turns out to be the second homeless woman to be found dead under mysterious circumstances....

As she starts middle school, Bess volunteers to work on the school musical in hopes of fitting in, but when she and a friend get to know an elderly homeless woman, Bess changes her mind about what is really important.

A homeless boy who lives in an airport with his father, moving from terminal to terminal and trying not to be noticed, is given hope when he sees a trapped bird find its freedom.

In the tradition of Mary Karr's "The Liars' Club" and Rick Bragg's "All Over But the Shouting," Jeannette Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric and severely misguided family. The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors...

"In Listen to the Lambs by Daniel Black, nothing can convince Lazarus Love III to return to the lifestyle of affluence and social status he once knew. Longing for a freedom of the soul that the world of capitalism cannot provide, Lazarus leaves all that he knows--including his wife and children--to achieve the ultimate level of peace and silence living as a possession-less man. When his quest causes him to cross paths with four other wanderers, all...