I like the book because it talks and addresses the topics we don’t discuss… like homelessness.
How can fix this social issue?
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Can't Get There from HereKindle Edition
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Her street name is Maybe
She lives with a tribe of homeless teens -- runaways and throwaways, kids who have no place to go other than the cold city streets, and no family except for one another. Abused, abandoned, and forgotten, they struggle against the cold, hunger, and constant danger.
With the frigid winds of January comes a new girl: Tears, a twelve-year-old whose mother doesn't believe her stepfather abuses her. As the other kids start to disappear -- victims of violence, addiction, and exposure -- Maybe tries to help Tears get off the streets...if it's not already too late.
Todd Strasser, author of the powerful and disturbingGive a Boy a Gun,again focuses on an important social issue as he tells a thought-provoking, heart-wrenching story of young lives lost to the streets, and of a society that has forgotten how to care.
She lives with a tribe of homeless teens -- runaways and throwaways, kids who have no place to go other than the cold city streets, and no family except for one another. Abused, abandoned, and forgotten, they struggle against the cold, hunger, and constant danger.
With the frigid winds of January comes a new girl: Tears, a twelve-year-old whose mother doesn't believe her stepfather abuses her. As the other kids start to disappear -- victims of violence, addiction, and exposure -- Maybe tries to help Tears get off the streets...if it's not already too late.
Todd Strasser, author of the powerful and disturbingGive a Boy a Gun,again focuses on an important social issue as he tells a thought-provoking, heart-wrenching story of young lives lost to the streets, and of a society that has forgotten how to care.
- Reading age12 years and up
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level7 - 9
- Lexile measure620L
- PublisherSimon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
- Publication dateMay 8, 2010
- ISBN-13978-0689841705
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up--A surrogate family of homeless teens lives on the streets of New York City, and the bleakness of their lives is clear early on when Country Club dies of "liver failure due to acute alcohol poisoning." His brief life is summarized in a one-page dossierlike format that immediately precedes the narrative description of his death. These clinical dossiers recur, like a premonition, as one by one this ragtag "family" disintegrates. But first, readers meet Maggot; Rainbow; beautiful, HIV-positive 2Moro; her club-hopping, sexually amorphous friend Jewel; the protagonist/narrator Maybe; and Tears, the newest, and, at 12 years of age, youngest member of the group. Gradually revealed are the physical and psychological scars that marked their paths to the police sweeps, illness, drugs, and destitution that litter their lives. Also made clear is the fact that these teens reject many offers of help, but find that the street looks better than the horrors from which they've fled. A kindly librarian, Anthony, becomes the hero, reuniting Tears with her grandparents and offering the possibility of a safe future to Maybe. While the events described in this cautionary tale are shocking, the language is not, making these all-too-real problems accessible to a wide readership. More sanitized than E. R. Frank'sAmerica(Atheneum, 2002), Han Nolan'sBorn Blue(Harcourt, 2001), or Adam Rapp's33 Snowfish(Candlewick, 2003), this is nevertheless a powerful and disturbing look at the downward spiral of despair that remains too common for too many teens.--Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
FromBooklist
Gr. 7-12. She calls herself Maybe. Thrown out by her abusive mom, she struggles to survive on the streets of New York with homeless teens who become a family in the asphalt jungle. They try to care for one another, but it doesn't help much. They beg and forage for food. Maybe knows some of them work as prostitutes and deal drugs. One or two do find loving homes, but most will die--from AIDS, violence, exposure, suicide. Without sentimentality or exploitation, Maybe's disturbing first-person narrative lets readers know exactly what it's like to live without shelter, huddling in nests of rags, newspapers, and plastic bags. In one vivid chapter, Maybe and her friend enjoy hot-water luxury in the library bathroom, until a brutal security guard makes the nude girls clean the place before throwing them out. Some adults are kind, including a librarian, and with his help, Maybe might make it in a youth home. Maybe. A story about people that we pretend don't exist; Strasser makes us know them.Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Strasser powerfully lays out the desperate realities of living on the street." --Denver Post
"Gritty and harsh." --VOYA
"After reading this book, you'll feel as if you spent a few hours in the shoes of a homeless kid." --YM
"Gritty and harsh." --VOYA
"After reading this book, you'll feel as if you spent a few hours in the shoes of a homeless kid." --YM
About the Author
Todd Strasser has written many critically acclaimed novels for adults, teenagers, and children, including the award-winningCan’t Get There from Here,Give a Boy a Gun,Boot Camp,If I Grow Up,Famous,andHow I Created My Perfect Prom Date,which became the Fox feature filmDrive Me Crazy.Todd lives in a suburb of New York and speaks frequently at schools. Visit him at ToddStrasser.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE: NEW YEAR'S EVE
Maggot said we should go up to Times Square to watch the ball drop and pick some pockets, but we never got around to it. Instead we hung out in front of the Good Life Deli like we always did. Maggot, Rainbow, 2Moro, and me. A cold mist drifted out of the dark, the little droplets sparkling in the streetlights. Maggot and me sat under the awning of the newspaper stand on the corner. The damp matted down our hair. Black puddles dotted the street and steam rose like ghosts from the manhole covers. Rainbow sat cross-legged against the wall, loose strands of blond hair falling out of a blue wool cap, her head nodding almost down to her lap. 2Moro leaned against the streetlight with her arms crossed, not saying anything to anyone, just waiting for someone to say something to her.
It was one of those nights when there wasn't much traffic on the streets of New York. Most of the New Year's partiers were done with their stupid celebrations and back in the four-walled cells they called apartments. Prisoners of the system, Maggot said. Now, only the newspaper delivery trucks and taxis passed, their tires making squishy sounds on the wet, black pavement. Out here in the cold where we weren't walled in, we were free to go where we pleased.
"Guess the cops have the night off," Maggot said, his brown dreadlocks stringy from the mist; his breath a small cloud of fog.
"The rest of the world, too," muttered 2Moro. She was wearing a red-and-orange patchwork jacket, a tight black skirt, and high black boots. Her short dyed red hair was matted down on her forehead like a cap. The piercings in her ears and eyebrow and nose glinted in the streetlight. Tattooed around her neck was a circle of black barbed wire.
I sipped cold coffee from a paper cup. At night we drank coffee to stay awake. It was safer to sleep during the day.
A man and a woman came around the corner wearing raincoats and sharing a red umbrella. They slowed down when they saw us. The woman slid her arm through the man's and said something in his ear. Probably wanted him to turn around and go another way. But the man shook his head. Taking stiff strides, they walked toward us.
When they got near, the woman wrinkled her nose like something smelled bad.
"Have fun tonight?" Maggot asked, kind of menacing.
The couple broke stride. "Yes, we did," the man answered.
"No work tomorrow, huh?" Maggot said. "Get to sleep in."
"That's right."
"Day after that it's back to the old nine-to-five grind," Maggot said.
"You could say that," answered the man.
"Happy New Year," said 2Moro, not in a friendly way.
"Same to you," said the man. He and the woman hurried past. She kept glancing over her shoulder at us until they reached the next corner.
"Robots," Maggot said. "Just following the rules. Work till they die. Then new robots replace them."
"Check this." 2Moro tilted her head down the sidewalk. A man came toward us, unsteady, dragging the toes of his shoes. The shoulders of his suit were dark with water and his white shirt collar was open, a blue-and-red tie hanging like an upside down noose. His face was clean-shaven, and even though his wet hair fell flat on his forehead, you could see that it had been recently trimmed.
We watched as he stumbled along, not yet aware of us. When he passed under a streetlight, something gold glinted on his wrist and light reflected off his wet polished leather shoes.
"Come to daddy," Maggot whispered, cracking his knuckles.
From her seat against the wall Rainbow raised her head. "Oh, Maggot, you're so full of it. You never rolled a drunk in your life."
"People do it all the time. How hard could it be?"
"He's big," I said.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." Maggot rose to his feet. "He'll never know what hit him."
"Let's do it," said 2Moro. She crossed the sidewalk and joined Maggot in the shadow of the newsstand awning.
Rainbow pressed her hands against the ground and tried to push herself up. "Come on, Maybe. Time to get outta here." But she lost her grip and slid back down.
"Try again." I put my hands under the arms of her black leather jacket and helped her up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the drunk guy a dozen yards away down the dark, wet sidewalk. He looked up, saw us, and stopped. I got Rainbow to her feet, turned her by the shoulders, and started to lead her away.
We were halfway down the block when the scuffle began. Maggot and 2Moro trying to wrestle the drunk down. Maggot pulling at the guy's jacket from the front. 2Moro hitting him from behind. Only the drunk didn't seem to get the idea. 2Moro and Maggot barely came up to his shoulders. He swung his arms and Maggot went down. Then he grabbed 2Moro and threw her so hard she disappeared between two parked cars. The drunk took a step, tripped over Maggot, and fell to his hands and knees. Maggot got up and jumped on his back. 2Moro came out from between the parked cars and started to kick the guy in the sides.
The guy yanked Maggot down to the sidewalk and straddled him. 2Moro was still kicking and hitting him, but the guy hardly seemed to notice. Pinned on his back under the drunk, Maggot flailed with open hands. The drunk slammed his fist into Maggot's face. Down the block Rainbow and me heard the crunching sound and saw Maggot go limp on the sidewalk. The drunk grabbed 2Moro by the wrist. She tried to shake free, but he wouldn't let go. He staggered to his feet and pulled his fist back like he was going to hit her next.
"Hey, don't!" I yelled and ran back toward them. I hated it when kids got hit. Got hit too many times myself. Not just with fists, neither.
Still holding 2Moro by the wrist, the drunk turned to look at me. I stopped a dozen feet away. "Please don't hurt her, Mister. Please?"
"They jumped me," the guy said.
"They're just kids. They didn't mean it."
"Didn't mean it? You crazy? They were kickin' and hittin' me. They wanted to rob me."
Maggot sat up on the sidewalk, hands covering his mouth and nose, dark red blood seeping out between his fingers. The drunk still had 2Moro by the wrist. She kept swinging, trying to hit him.
"Let me go!" she screeched.
"Let her go," I said. "She's just a girl. Please?"
"You kiddin' me? She's twice as bad as him." The drunk pointed at Maggot.
"Just let her go," I said. "I promise she won't hurt you."
"I'm gonna kill this pig!" 2Moro screamed, still clawing and scraping like a wild animal. The drunk twisted her arm tighter.
"Ow!" 2Moro yelped.
"You better stop," I told her, "or he's gonna hurt you bad."
2Moro stopped.
"If I let go, you gonna go quietly?" the drunk asked.
"Drop dead." 2Moro spit.
He yanked her arm up behind her back. 2Moro let out a squeal and went limp. "Okay, okay," she whimpered. The guy let go and 2Moro stumbled away, cradling her arm. The whole thing must have sobered the guy up, because he stood straighter and tightened the blue-and-red tie around his collar. He looked down at his suit. The knee was torn. "Look what you kids did."
"Sorry," I said.
"Sorry?" he repeated. "Your friends jump me and you're sorry?"
"They just wanted some money."
"Then they should've asked." He looked around. 2Moro was rubbing her sore arm. Maggot was sitting on the sidewalk, staring at the blood on his hands. Down the block Rainbow was leaning against another wall, her head and shoulders again dipping toward her waist.
"Just a bunch of punks out to roll some drunks on New Year's Eve," the guy grumbled in disgust.
"No kidding," Maggot muttered.
"Well, you picked the wrong drunk." The guy started to walk away through the mist. He reached into his pocket and tossed out a handful of loose change. As the coins clattered onto the sidewalk, he said, "Happy New Year."
Copyright © 2004 by Todd Strasser
Maggot said we should go up to Times Square to watch the ball drop and pick some pockets, but we never got around to it. Instead we hung out in front of the Good Life Deli like we always did. Maggot, Rainbow, 2Moro, and me. A cold mist drifted out of the dark, the little droplets sparkling in the streetlights. Maggot and me sat under the awning of the newspaper stand on the corner. The damp matted down our hair. Black puddles dotted the street and steam rose like ghosts from the manhole covers. Rainbow sat cross-legged against the wall, loose strands of blond hair falling out of a blue wool cap, her head nodding almost down to her lap. 2Moro leaned against the streetlight with her arms crossed, not saying anything to anyone, just waiting for someone to say something to her.
It was one of those nights when there wasn't much traffic on the streets of New York. Most of the New Year's partiers were done with their stupid celebrations and back in the four-walled cells they called apartments. Prisoners of the system, Maggot said. Now, only the newspaper delivery trucks and taxis passed, their tires making squishy sounds on the wet, black pavement. Out here in the cold where we weren't walled in, we were free to go where we pleased.
"Guess the cops have the night off," Maggot said, his brown dreadlocks stringy from the mist; his breath a small cloud of fog.
"The rest of the world, too," muttered 2Moro. She was wearing a red-and-orange patchwork jacket, a tight black skirt, and high black boots. Her short dyed red hair was matted down on her forehead like a cap. The piercings in her ears and eyebrow and nose glinted in the streetlight. Tattooed around her neck was a circle of black barbed wire.
I sipped cold coffee from a paper cup. At night we drank coffee to stay awake. It was safer to sleep during the day.
A man and a woman came around the corner wearing raincoats and sharing a red umbrella. They slowed down when they saw us. The woman slid her arm through the man's and said something in his ear. Probably wanted him to turn around and go another way. But the man shook his head. Taking stiff strides, they walked toward us.
When they got near, the woman wrinkled her nose like something smelled bad.
"Have fun tonight?" Maggot asked, kind of menacing.
The couple broke stride. "Yes, we did," the man answered.
"No work tomorrow, huh?" Maggot said. "Get to sleep in."
"That's right."
"Day after that it's back to the old nine-to-five grind," Maggot said.
"You could say that," answered the man.
"Happy New Year," said 2Moro, not in a friendly way.
"Same to you," said the man. He and the woman hurried past. She kept glancing over her shoulder at us until they reached the next corner.
"Robots," Maggot said. "Just following the rules. Work till they die. Then new robots replace them."
"Check this." 2Moro tilted her head down the sidewalk. A man came toward us, unsteady, dragging the toes of his shoes. The shoulders of his suit were dark with water and his white shirt collar was open, a blue-and-red tie hanging like an upside down noose. His face was clean-shaven, and even though his wet hair fell flat on his forehead, you could see that it had been recently trimmed.
We watched as he stumbled along, not yet aware of us. When he passed under a streetlight, something gold glinted on his wrist and light reflected off his wet polished leather shoes.
"Come to daddy," Maggot whispered, cracking his knuckles.
From her seat against the wall Rainbow raised her head. "Oh, Maggot, you're so full of it. You never rolled a drunk in your life."
"People do it all the time. How hard could it be?"
"He's big," I said.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." Maggot rose to his feet. "He'll never know what hit him."
"Let's do it," said 2Moro. She crossed the sidewalk and joined Maggot in the shadow of the newsstand awning.
Rainbow pressed her hands against the ground and tried to push herself up. "Come on, Maybe. Time to get outta here." But she lost her grip and slid back down.
"Try again." I put my hands under the arms of her black leather jacket and helped her up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the drunk guy a dozen yards away down the dark, wet sidewalk. He looked up, saw us, and stopped. I got Rainbow to her feet, turned her by the shoulders, and started to lead her away.
We were halfway down the block when the scuffle began. Maggot and 2Moro trying to wrestle the drunk down. Maggot pulling at the guy's jacket from the front. 2Moro hitting him from behind. Only the drunk didn't seem to get the idea. 2Moro and Maggot barely came up to his shoulders. He swung his arms and Maggot went down. Then he grabbed 2Moro and threw her so hard she disappeared between two parked cars. The drunk took a step, tripped over Maggot, and fell to his hands and knees. Maggot got up and jumped on his back. 2Moro came out from between the parked cars and started to kick the guy in the sides.
The guy yanked Maggot down to the sidewalk and straddled him. 2Moro was still kicking and hitting him, but the guy hardly seemed to notice. Pinned on his back under the drunk, Maggot flailed with open hands. The drunk slammed his fist into Maggot's face. Down the block Rainbow and me heard the crunching sound and saw Maggot go limp on the sidewalk. The drunk grabbed 2Moro by the wrist. She tried to shake free, but he wouldn't let go. He staggered to his feet and pulled his fist back like he was going to hit her next.
"Hey, don't!" I yelled and ran back toward them. I hated it when kids got hit. Got hit too many times myself. Not just with fists, neither.
Still holding 2Moro by the wrist, the drunk turned to look at me. I stopped a dozen feet away. "Please don't hurt her, Mister. Please?"
"They jumped me," the guy said.
"They're just kids. They didn't mean it."
"Didn't mean it? You crazy? They were kickin' and hittin' me. They wanted to rob me."
Maggot sat up on the sidewalk, hands covering his mouth and nose, dark red blood seeping out between his fingers. The drunk still had 2Moro by the wrist. She kept swinging, trying to hit him.
"Let me go!" she screeched.
"Let her go," I said. "She's just a girl. Please?"
"You kiddin' me? She's twice as bad as him." The drunk pointed at Maggot.
"Just let her go," I said. "I promise she won't hurt you."
"I'm gonna kill this pig!" 2Moro screamed, still clawing and scraping like a wild animal. The drunk twisted her arm tighter.
"Ow!" 2Moro yelped.
"You better stop," I told her, "or he's gonna hurt you bad."
2Moro stopped.
"If I let go, you gonna go quietly?" the drunk asked.
"Drop dead." 2Moro spit.
He yanked her arm up behind her back. 2Moro let out a squeal and went limp. "Okay, okay," she whimpered. The guy let go and 2Moro stumbled away, cradling her arm. The whole thing must have sobered the guy up, because he stood straighter and tightened the blue-and-red tie around his collar. He looked down at his suit. The knee was torn. "Look what you kids did."
"Sorry," I said.
"Sorry?" he repeated. "Your friends jump me and you're sorry?"
"They just wanted some money."
"Then they should've asked." He looked around. 2Moro was rubbing her sore arm. Maggot was sitting on the sidewalk, staring at the blood on his hands. Down the block Rainbow was leaning against another wall, her head and shoulders again dipping toward her waist.
"Just a bunch of punks out to roll some drunks on New Year's Eve," the guy grumbled in disgust.
"No kidding," Maggot muttered.
"Well, you picked the wrong drunk." The guy started to walk away through the mist. He reached into his pocket and tossed out a handful of loose change. As the coins clattered onto the sidewalk, he said, "Happy New Year."
Copyright © 2004 by Todd Strasser
Product details
- ASIN : B003L77UPM
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (May 8, 2010)
- Publication date : May 8, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 393 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 218 pages
- Best Sellers Rank:#897,106 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Todd Strasser is the author of more than 140 for middle graders, young adults, and adults. His YA novels including such award winners as The Wave, Price of Duty, No Place, If I Grow Up, Boot Camp, Can't Get There From Here, Give a Boy a Gun, Wish You Were Dead, The Good War.
His books for middle graders include the best-selling 17-book Help! I'm Trapped in... series, which began with Help! I'm Trapped in My Teacher's Body. Additional middle-grade novels include Fallout, which received a stellar review in the New York Times and was named a must-read middle school book by School Library Journal.
Todd's most recent novel for adults is Summer of '69, which recounts his life during the summer of 1969, culminating in his experience at Woodstock.
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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
129 global ratings
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2020
I absolutely love this book I read it the first time when I was 13. I'm 23 now and this book still pulls at my heart strings. It's so good, and so real. So AMAZING
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2014
This is a great book. This is a good book for high interest low level readers in middle school. My students loved the book. Many of them finished the book weeks before they were supposed to complete it as a class. These are students who "don't like to read".
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2015
This book filled me with a multitude of feelings and thoughts with every chapter being another revelation to each character's tragic background. Although some characters were a bit lackluster to me due to not being properly fleshed out like "2Moro" and "OG" I still felt the impact they left on the other members of the "asphalt tribe". The ever prevalent themes of loneliness, naivete, and family makes you feel connected to this book even if you've never been through the same experiences as the characters. And a bit of a SPOILER but the end of a Todd Starsser novel with a relatively happy ending is pretty darn awesome.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2014
This book was so real. For the good and bad areas in life. You learn so many lessons and the ending does not disappoint. I loved it!
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2012
This was a book my daughter has to read from a school project and she really enjoy Thanks and price was right
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2017
great
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2014
A story of street kids that is not romanticised but not hard hitting enough to shock.
Language is aimed at teens which I suppose is its market.
Language is aimed at teens which I suppose is its market.
Top reviews from other countries
Mike Steckly
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book in the world hands down.
Reviewed in Canada on July 26, 2018
The life you thought street kids live is nothing like they do. This book fills your heart from page one and you can't put it down. Opened my eyes to the world. Great book all around. Great read for a weekend of rela xing.
Sophie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sehr zu empfehlen
Reviewed in Germany on December 19, 2016
Ein sehr schönes Buch von Todd Strasser alias Morton Ruhe. Es behandelt Verzweiflung ebenso wie lustige Inhalte. Mochte persönlich hat das Buch sehr berührt, seit dem gehe ich mit offenen Augen durch die Straßen
ross
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly an amazing read. such an emotional book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2017
Truly an amazing read. such an emotional book, with amazing highs and devastating lows. one of the best books i have ever read. well done Todd Strasser
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