"Many people helped improve the quality of this book-its accuracy, its clarity, the force of its presentation. Four people were kind enough to read the entire manuscript, and they made helpful comments and corrections throughout: Paul Dornan, formerly responsible for research on homelessness at HUD; Lucie Khadduri, who lives in Olympia WA, a city with a recent upsurge in homelessness; Daniel Perlman, Series Editor for the Society for the Psychological...

"For forty-seven days in 1999, Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray lived by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, the nation's fifteenth-largest city. They went to the streets to practice presence: to offer nonjudgmental attention and compassion to everyone they met, especially the chronically homeless, who are so often ignored, scorned, abused, or shunned. 'The Emptiness of Our Hands, ' now in its third edition, is a meditative chronicle of their...

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.

"Inside a prestigious law firm, a rookie lawyer is pulled into a dark maze of lies and violence. An ambitious Stanford graduate, David Adams has begun a fast-track career at Austin's most prestigious law firm. It's a personal victory for the rising superstar--a satisfying reversal from his impoverished and despairing childhood. Now he has the life he's always wanted: an extravagant salary, a high-rise condo, a luxury SUV, and no limit to how far he...

When Lizzie and Ben discover a homeless lady living in their neighborhood, they must reconcile their desire to help her with their mother's admonition not to talk to strangers.

Trying to get to the beach where it is warm, two homeless boys enlist the aid of a rich woman who gives them money in exchange for a guardian angel.

Stephanie Michelle, who cares for animals and listens to the sun, believes the homeless child, Fondo, when he tells her that the geese have invited him to fly away with them.

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.

Valli has always been afraid of the lepers living on the other side of the train tracks in the coal town of Jharia, India, so when a chance encounter with a doctor reveals she also has leprosy, Valli rejects help and begins an uncertain life on the streets.

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she's already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts...