Fifteen-year-old Tyrell, who is living in a Bronx homeless shelter with his spaced-out mother and his younger brother, tries to avoid temptation so he does not end up in jail like his father.

In 1967, when his teacher loans him a copy of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," eleven-year-old Ellis Earl Brown is amazed to encounter a family worse off than his own and wonders if happy endings only come in books.

A poor family is searching down the back of a chair for Dad's lost car keys and, miraculously in the mess of things back there, their financial problems are solved.

Seoul. On the outskirts of South Korea's glittering metropolis is a place few people know about: a vast landfill site called Flower Island. Home to those driven from the city by poverty, is it here that 14-year-old Bugeye and his mother arrive, following his father's internment in a government 're-education camp'. Living in a shack and supporting himself by weeding recyclables out of the refuse, at first Bugeye's life on Flower Island is hard. But...

Chronicles a family overcoming adversity in French Polynesia. "Far from Tahiti’s postcard-perfect beaches, Ma and Auguste and five of their nine children live a hand-to-mouth life in destitute, run-down Tenaho. Nine-year-old Pina, abused and neglected in equal measure, is the keeper of her family’s secrets, though the weight of this knowledge soon proves to be a burden no child could ever bear. A victim of her father’s alcoholic...