As she struggles to recover and survive, seventeen-year-old homeless Charlotte "Charlie" Davis cuts herself to dull the pain of abandonment and abuse.

In nineteenth-century England, after her father's disappearance Nan Sparrow, ten, works as a "climbing boy," aiding chimney sweeps, but when her most treasured possessions end up in a fireplace, she unwittingly creates a golem.

"While learning about September 11th, fifth grader Dèja (born after the attacks) realizes how much the events still color her world"--

Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart -- and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed -- a dark subculture flourish in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city -- a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known...Richard Mayhew is a young businessman...

In a series of letters and journal entries, twelve-year-old Vivien describes being abandoned by her mother and struggling to survive on the streets of a big city while searching for her family.

After her mother leaves, fifteen-year-old Irena runs away from home and hitchhikes to Key West where she tries to make a better life for herself.

Nine-year-old Chive, homeless because his parents have lost their farm and are looking for work in the city, strikes up an unusual friendship with eleven-year-old Terry and competes with him in a skateboard competition.