Runaway

Runaway by Van Draanen, Wendelin. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780375835223.

"Its a cold, hard, cruel fact that my mother loved heroin more than she loved me." Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and shes had enough. Shes run away before and always been caught quickly. But shes older and wiser now--shes twelve--and this time she gets away clean. Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across the country--hopping trains, scamming food, sleeping in parks or homeless encampments. And we also travel with her across the gaping holes in her heart--as she finally comes to terms with her mothers addiction and death. Runaway is a remarkably uplifting portrait of a girl still young and stubborn and naive enough to hold out hope for finding a better place in the world, and within herself, to be.