Imagine a young boy who has never had a loving home. His only possessions are the old, torn clothes he carries in a paper bag. The only world he knows is one of isolation and fear. Although others had rescued this boy from his abusive alcoholic mother, his real hurt is just beginning — he has no place to call home.

This is Dave Pelzer's long-awaited sequel to A Child Called "It". In The Lost Boy, he answers questions and reveals new adventures through the compelling story of his life as an adolescent. Now considered an F-Child (Foster Child), Dave is moved in and out of five different homes. He suffers shame and experiences resentment from those who feel that all foster kids are trouble and unworthy of being loved just because they are not part of a "real" family.

Tears, laughter, devastation, and hope create the journey of this little lost boy who searches desperately for just one thing — the love of a family.

Survivor... a word continuously thought of when reading this memoir.

Upon the release of The Freedom Writers Diary and film adaptation starring Hilary Swank in 2007, Darrius Garrett realized that both book and movie tell the Freedom Writer Story as a whole, but not on a personal level. During speaking engagements, the same questions always surface: 'Did Ms. Gruwell change you? How did you make it out of the gang life? What stopped you from killing yourself?' Darrius's answers are inside.

Diary of a Freedom Writer takes you on a journey beyond the classrooms to the treacherous streets of Long Beach, California. An innocent little boy born in poverty and raised in a violent environment, Darrius became a product of the streets, written off by the school and judicial systems alike, growing up in an environment full of gangs and drugs. He spent his life searching for a father figure until he became a Freedom Writer, motivational speaker, and finally a father himself. His story is that of a man realizing his experiences are what made him the man he has been seeking to be all his life.

Upon beating the odds, Diary of a Freedom Writer serves as proof that Darrius's story of struggle, life, change, and hope will uplift, educate, encourage, and inspire.

I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison.

At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit.

Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect.