Parked

For fans of Rebecca Stead and Joan Bauer comes a scrappy, poignant, uplifting debut about family, friendship, and the importance of learning both how to offer help and how to accept it.

'A big-hearted novel with characters I wish were my friends in real life.' --Gennifer Choldenko, author of the Al Capone at Alcatraz series

Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade.

Cal is tall, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her.

Jeanne Ann is roughly as enthusiastic about his help as she is about living in a van.

As the two form a tentative friendship that grows deeper over alternating chapters, they're buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters, who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering. Debut novelist Danielle Svetcov shines a light on a big problem without a ready answer, nailing heartbreak and hope, and pulling it off with a humor and warmth that make the funny parts of Jeanne Ann and Cal's story cathartic and the difficult parts all the more moving.

'Insightful [and] touching...Not to be missed.' --Karen Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice
'You won't be able to put it down. Trust.' --ScaryMommy.com
'For readers of Dan Gemeinhart [and] Katherine Applegate.' --The Children's Book Review
'Absorbing and warmhearted.' --Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series
'Pertinent....Honest...Uplifting...Fresh.' --PW
'Realistically hopeful...Recommended.' --SLC
'Sharp...Perceptive.' --BCCB
'Utterly of this moment.' --Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos