When Dan’s parents lose their home, the high school student and his family move into a tent city. He struggles to continue with life as normal, all the while knowing that he doesn’t have a home, that he’s different, but still wants to have dignity. A realistic look at the problems that homeless families face, and the avenues of civic involvement available to help solve social problems.

An excellent realistic novel, No Place, follows Dan as his family becomes homeless.

Dan is a great athlete and a really good pitcher who is planning on a scholarship to Rice University. During the economic downtown, Dan’s parents lose their jobs and are unable to get work that would pay everything. Dan discovers that they must now officially move out of their home. Living with his uncle doesn’t work out, so they move to the tent city that the city has allowed for the homeless, named Dignityville. Needless to say, Dan is embarrassed, but he learns that hunger and sleep can overcome embarrassment. His friends try to be supportive, but they don’t understand. Dan doesn’t really understand either.

Many people in town want Dignityville to be destroyed because they feel their property will lose value. The argument presented in the book is whether money or people are more important. Many people at Dignityville have jobs, but they are homeless because of many other reasons. Meg and Dan become friends because Meg already lives at Dignityville because everyone in her family has a job, but all of the money goes to her father’s cancer bills. She’s the only one who can understand how Dan feels. The town has to decide what and who they are willing to support by the end of the novel.

I really liked this novel and readily turned each page. It’s definitely a discussion starter because it shows that homelessness is a complicated social problem that needs a better way to address it than choosing not to see it. ( )