By Joan Bauer
When her family falls apart and her mother can't cope, a homeless twelve-year-old and a rescued puppy hold on until they land somewhere safe.
Sugar Mae Cole is twelve, funny, and full of the poems her beloved grandfather taught her, right up until he dies, her gambling father disappears again, and she and her mom lose their house. They ride to Chicago hoping for a fresh start and find shelters and park benches instead. Then her mother's sadness deepens into something Sugar can't fix, and one day her mom can't get out of bed, can't cope, and ends up in a hospital, and Sugar is placed with a foster family. Through all of it Sugar keeps a rescued puppy named Shush, a teacher who believes in her, and her grandfather's poems. It's Joan Bauer, so it's warm and even funny in places, but it looks homelessness, a parent's breakdown, and foster care straight in the eye.
This is the heaviest book on the shelf, and the one that trusts an older child with the fuller picture: that a parent can love you and still not be able to care for you, and that going into foster care can be the thing that keeps a child safe rather than a punishment. Bauer never lets it curdle into despair, Sugar's humor and her found family carry it, but she doesn't pretend the hard parts away either. For a child old enough to sit with it, read alongside a grown-up, it's honest and finally hopeful.