It was quite a journey just getting my toe in the door.' A lot of the shelters, by law, need to protect the families within, and the minute you say you're a writer, they are understandably leery, even if you explain you write books for children. I couldn't pretend to be a neutral (observer). 'I wanted to get a little closer,' she said. This year Chicago Public Schools alone are on track to accept 18,000 identified homeless students, a 5 percent increase over the previous year, he said.īalliett was compelled to volunteer in shelters around the city. Early, especially, never loses faith that her father will return (when others suggest he has abandoned them) and is determined to follow inscrutable clues hidden in words and rhythms to track him down.Īnd yet homelessness increasingly has the face of a young child, said Michael Nameche, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless director of development. Despite several setbacks, the Pearls are a tightly knit family. Desperate and destitute, they become embroiled in Chicago's beleaguered shelter system.

Joining the ranks of Calder and Petra, the resourceful preteen heroes of Balliett's previous novels, 'Chasing Vermeer,' 'The Wright 3' and 'The Calder Game,' and Zoomy in 'The Danger Box' is 11-year-old Early Pearl, a whip-smart book-loving girl whose world is upended when her father, Dashel, who works at the Harold Washington Library, goes missing.Ī harrowing series of events culminates with a frightening invasion that leaves the Pearls' one-room rental apartment in Woodlawn destroyed and the family on the run. Chicago-based author Blue Balliett's new book, 'Hold Fast' is a literary mystery set amid the harsh realities of the homeless.

Hold fast by blue balliett