It is full of risk and tenderness, pain and insight all mixed with fear and hope. John Broughton, associate professor of psychology & education, Teachers College, Columbia University

She not only will get young people to read but make them want to write as well.” We have a lot to learn about homelessness, and Summer Brenner’s saga of fractured family and redeeming friendship takes us deep inside the experience, while agitating our broader concern with social justice. “ Ivy is an engaging, educational experience, with emotional range, density of characters, a cinematic visual imagination, and a heroine wild at heart. Recipient of the Children’s Literary Classics and MOONBEAM awards Ivy’s tale will appeal to young readers and adults, providing much material for discussion between generations.

This marks the start of a series of desperate and joyful adventures that blend a spoonful of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist with a dash of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City and a few pinches of the Adventures of Lassie. Struggling to survive day to day, Ivy and Poppy befriend a dog who leads them to the ramshackle home of octogenarian siblings, Eugenia and Oscar Orr. Its inspiring young heroine is Ivy, who finds herself homeless on the streets of San Francisco when she and her father, Poppy, are evicted from their artist loft.

In this empathetic tale of hope, understanding, and the importance of family, young readers confront the difficult issues of poverty and the hardships of homelessness.

Homeless wild at heart book charters