Shelter
Grade 6-10–When 15-year-old Lucy's father dies, her family learns that he was deeply in debt and that they can no longer afford their upper-middle-class lifestyle. Within just a few months, they find themselves living in a shelter. Lucy must leave her private school and attend a public school in a rough neighborhood, where she feels grateful to be lost in the crowd so that she can keep her circumstances a secret. She takes care of her younger brother, pushes her mother to go to school and be sociable, gets a job, makes friends with other residents at the shelter, and tracks down her estranged aunt. By the end of the book, Lucy's family has regained some semblance of their former life. While this novel addresses a difficult social problem, it is somewhat unrealistic as, in the end, things work out well for almost everybody. Lucy's mother gets a job and meets a new man, Lucy finds a boyfriend, and friends from the shelter find jobs and move to better apartments. While this is not great literature, its appealing characters and smoothly flowing plot make it a satisfying read.–Janet Hilbun, Texas Woman's University, DentonCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.