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Gr 3–6—Valli, about 10, lives in the poverty-stricken town of Jharia, India, where she is a coal picker. When she makes a shocking discovery about her family, she runs away and, after a series of harrowing events, reaches the bustling city of Kolkata. Valli survives on the street by stealing and begging. With no plan, no support system, and failing health, she begins to lose hope. While begging for change one day, she is befriended by a kind doctor who recogn...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

How does a homeless child survive Kolkata's mean streets? For orphaned Valli, who may be nine (she herself doesn't know), it's by "borrowing" items like the hotel blanket she passes on to an even needier mother and children; it's incorporating poetry scavenged from discarded books into her begging routine, being wary of strangers, and living by her wits and in the moment. Having discovered that her ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Valli, orphaned and homeless, survives Kolkata's mean streets living by her wits. With telltale symptoms of leprosy, Valli encounters a doctor, wh...Log In or Sign Up to Read More