Children's Book Suggestions | Income Inequality

HUD's annual Point-in-Time Homeless Count, which estimates how many individuals are living without stable & secure housing, will be held on January 25, 2024. Whether you're hoping to help kids see themselves in a book or help them develop empathy for their friends and classmates, these books on poverty, homelessness, and foster care shine a light on an all-too-common experience.

Updated December 15, 2023
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)Oregon City Public Library
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Something like home
Arango, Andrea Beatriz
Paper Book
The Pura Belpré Honor winning novel in verse, in which a lost dog helps a lonely girl find a way home to her family . . . only for them to find family in each other along the way. From the Newbery Honor winning author of Iveliz Explains It All. "Trust me: this book will touch...

Sent to live with her aunt after a well-meaning 911 call sends them to rehab, Laura copes with her feelings by training a stray puppy to be a therapy dog in this moving novel in verse. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Duet for home (Large Print)
Glaser, Karina Yan
Paper Book

A young musician bonds with a longtime resident when her family moves into a homeless shelter. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

No place like home
Bird, James
Paper Book
A middle-grade novel by James Bird about homelessness and hope. When home is a car, life is unpredictable. School, friends, and three meals a day aren't guaranteed. Not every town has a shelter where a family can sleep for a night or two, and places with parking lots don't...
Inspired by an Ojibwe author's childhood experiences with housing insecurity. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)
Operation final notice
Landis, Matthew
Paper Book
Told in alternating points of view, this middle grade novel, following best friends Ronny and Jo, is about anxiety, being in over your head, and learning to accept help-even if you don't know how to ask Eight hundred seventy-eight dollars. That's how much Ronny needs by January...

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