In a gritty and bleak novel, Todd Strasser offers a harsh look at the lives of homeless teens and the urban tribes they create to replace families from whom they have become estranged. Some teens are on the streets by choice, others were rejected by their families of birth, and each adopts a new name and identity to survive the very real dangers of living on the streets. Strasser’s story for mature teens (it includes sexuality, and graphic violence and language) follows a teen called Maybe. One by one, her street brothers and sisters disappear or die deaths that could have been avoided: exposure to the elements, drugs, murder, AIDS-related illnesses. Each gruesome death is revealed in a cold, official police report at the beginning of a new chapter. Angel, 2Moro, Maggot, Rainbow: Maybe loses them all. Adults and do-gooders intermittently try to help the teens, but their ignorance about each kid’s situation, their insistence on knowing what is best, and the reality of shelters and social workers makes their offers of safety sound hollow. One adult manages to get it right: a librarian at the public library offers Maybe help without trying to tell her what help she needs. By being available to her on her own terms, he is ultimately able to provide the single glimmer of hope that might save Maybe, and that keeps an emotionally challenging book from being unbearably depressing. (Ages 15–17)

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 disturbing Give 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.