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🧲 Books like this

The Pinballs

Betsy Byars · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeNeglect
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One for the Murphys

Lynda Mullaly Hunt

"After heartbreaking betrayal, Carley is sent to live with a foster family and struggles with opening herself up to their love"--

Foster CareFound FamilyBelongingMiddle Grade
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Where I'd Like to Be

Frances O'Roark Dowell · 240 pages

A group of foster children build a home of their own. A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life shuffled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels even less special. She longs f

Foster CareBelongingFound FamilyMiddle Grade
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Orphan Train

Christina Baker Kline · 400 pages

Close to aging out of the foster care system, Molly Ayer takes a position helping an elderly woman named Vivian and discovers that they are more alike than different as she helps Vivian solve a mystery from her past. When 17-year-old Molly Ayer is sent to perform community service at elderly Vivian Daly's home in order to avoid juvenile hall, she discovers the two are very much alike, despite the

Foster CareBelongingFound FamilyNeglect
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Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery · 308 pages

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeBelonging
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Counting by 7s

Holly Goldberg Sloan · 380 pages

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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My Friends

Fredrik Backman · 448 pages

The beautiful new novel that will make you laugh and cry, from the global bestselling author of Anxious People and A Man Called Ove. 'A stunning, sweeping, extraordinary story of connection, love, and the unbreakable bonds that guide and shape us. Full of humour and heart, My Friends is simply wonderful' Chris Whitaker * AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * * WINNER OF GOODREADS

Foster CareFound FamilyHeartwarmingOmniscient Narrator
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Wish

Barbara O'Connor · 227 pages

charlie resse has been making the same wish every day since forth grade but when she is sent to live with family the barly knows it seems unlikely that her wish will ever come true that is, until she meets wishbone a skinny stray dog who captures her heart

BelongingFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Ruby Holler

Sharon Creech · 310 pages

From the winner of the Newbery Award for Walk Two Moons comes a novel for young people about finding love -- and a home -- in the most unexpected of places. Filled with humor, poignancy, cookies, and treasure maps, Ruby Holler is about a special place where it's never too late to be loved.Dallas and Florida have been dubbed the "trouble twins." They have been shuffled between foster families and o

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The House in the Cerulean Sea

Tj Klune · 416 pages

Linus is an uptight caseworker with a heart of gold working for the department in charge of magical youth. When he goes to investigate an orphanage on an island with supposedly dangerous children and an enigmatic leader Arthur, he’s expecting the worst. But it turns out he might be falling in love with Arthur and his charges.

Foster CareBelongingFound FamilyHeartwarming
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Plainsong

Kent Haruf · 301 pages

BelongingFound FamilyHeartwarmingNeglect
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Touch Blue

Cynthia Lord

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Schooled

Gordon Korman · 208 pages

Thirteen year old Anderson has never watched t.v., or never had pizza or even heard of a wedgie. The only thing he has ever done is been home schooled by his hippie grand mother, Rain. When she broke her hip after she fell out of a tree picking plums, he is forced to stay in a foster home. Will this be his only chance to try to stop from going to a real school? Or will his bananas go rotton?

BelongingMiddle GradeFound FamilyHeartwarming
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Summer of the Gypsy Moths

Sara Pennypacker · 288 pages

A foster child named Angel and twelve-year-old Stella, who are living with Stella's great-aunt Louise at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony on Cape Cod, secretly assume responsibility for the vacation rentals when Louise unexpectedly dies and the girls are afraid of being returned to the foster care system.

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The Bean Trees

Barbara Kingsolver · 240 pages

Taylor, a poor Kentuckian making her way west with an abandoned baby girl, stops in Tucson where she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.

BelongingFound FamilyHeartwarmingNeglect
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The War I Finally Won

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley · 400 pages

When Ada's clubfoot is surgically fixed at last, she knows for certain that she's not what her mother said she was--damaged, deranged, crippled mentally as well as physically. She's not a daughter anymore, either. What is she? World War II continues, and Ada and her brother, Jamie, are living with their loving legal guardian, Susan, in a borrowed cottage on the estate of the formidable Lady Thorto

Foster CareFound FamilyMiddle GradeChild Abuse
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The Wild Robot

Peter Brown · 287 pages

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is--but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a fierce storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabita

Found FamilyBelongingMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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The Language of Flowers

Vanessa Diffenbaugh · 322 pages

Victoria Jones spent her childhood moving from foster home to foster home. She believes she is damaged beyond hope and trusts nobody, connecting with the world through message-laden bouquets. Her messages are never understood until one day a man in a flower stall responds in kind.

Foster CareBelongingNeglectContemporary Fiction
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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride · 614 pages

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared amb

BelongingFound FamilyHeartwarmingHopeful
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Long Way Home

Michael Morpurgo · 148 pages

Twelve-year-old George is sent to his seventh foster home, down on the Dyers' farm this time. He's dreading it. He bitterly used to the routine: getting stared at, feeling different, all the questions. This family seem to be different - a wayward cow introduces him to the children, Tom and the non-stop talker Storme, and George enjoys his first day on the farm. By night, he's still determined to r

Foster CareBelongingMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Kinda Like Brothers

Coe Booth · 248 pages

When his mother takes in a twelve-year-old foster boy, Jarrett is forced to share his room and his friends with the new boy.

Foster CareBelongingMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Because of Winn-Dixie

Kate DiCamillo · 182 pages

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her becauThe summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket—and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tel

Found FamilyBelongingMiddle GradeHeartwarming
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Other Birds

Sarah Addison Allen · 320 pages

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways. Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits-a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother

BelongingFound FamilyHeartwarmingContemporary Fiction
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Maniac Magee

Jerry Spinelli · 184 pages

Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

BelongingFound FamilyMiddle GradeHeartwarming

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