Strays Like Us

by Richard Peck

Overview

Molly Moberly knows she doesn't belong in this small Missouri town with her great-aunt Fay. It's just a temporary arrangement--until her mother gets out of the hospital. But then Molly meets Will, a fellow stray, and begins to realize she's not the only one on the outside. In fact, it seems like the town's full of strays--only some end up where they belong sooner than others. Richard Peck has created a rich, compassionate story that will go straight to the heart of every kid who's ever felt like an outsider."This sensitive heroine is one readers will want to take under their wing." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101174364
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/01/2000
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	214 KB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

RICHARD PECK (1934-2018) was born in Decatur, Illinois and lived in New York City for nearly 50 years. The acclaimed author of 35 novels for children and young adults, he won the Newbery Medal for A Year Down Yonder, a Newbery Honor for A Long Way from Chicago, the Scott O’Dell Award for The River Between Us, the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Are You in the House Alone?, a Boston Globe-Horn BookAward Honor for The Best Man, and the Christopher Medal for The Teacher’s Funeral. He was the first children’s author ever to have been awarded a National Humanities Medal, and was twice a National Book Award Finalist.  

Editorial Reviews

With a hospitalized heroin addict for a mother and facing the prospect of another new school, Molly Moberly, 12, is a stray who delivers in an abrupt and somewhat detached narrative the details of a year in her life. Molly has been sent to live with a relative by marriage, Aunt Fay. Next door is Will McKinney, a fellow stray living with his grandparents. The wistful, ingenuous narration gains strength as Molly meets the tale's many eccentric characters; their actions have an impact on Molly even as their motives remain mostly unknown: A home-schooled child Molly befriends ("I could only wonder at Tracy having this much mother when I didn't have any") is badly burned after torching the public school; a wealthy, lonely woman Molly visits turns out to be her grandmother; the McKinneysþwho had allowed people to think that Will's father was in prisonþhave been taking care of him at home as he slowly dies of AIDS. The novel settles upon a host of difficult issues and then, indescribably, lets them go: When Will sustains a bloody injury while playing ball, the coach requests that he quit the team because other members are afraid of contracting HIV. Instead of countering this ignorance, Will retreats, and the issue is dropped, with only a few utterances of protest from Aunt Fay. The novel becomes something of a treatise about a generation of children who have been cast aside by their parents; with its compelling premises and Molly's fragile but tautly convincing voice, it will be seized upon by Peck's fans, but may leave them longing for more. (Fiction. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews