Charles Dickens meets Sapphire meets rough times for a young person in this modern day tale of a teenager's life in Varano, Italy. Cristiano's neo-Nazi dad and several pals decide to launch the perfect robbery by running some type of vehicle into an ATM machine. Most everything goes disastrously wrong, including the life of Cristiano, the young protagonist. This is a gritty compelling story of a young person caught in a life without options. The book was awarded Italy's Strega Prize.

Eleven-year-old Jim is torn from the comfort of his upper-class British family when Japan attacks allied warships in Shanghai on December 7, 1941. He is left to scavenge in a city left in ruins until being picked up and thrown into an internment camp with adults.

In nineteenth century Jamaica, a shipload of British children are being sent home to school when their ship is highjacked by pirates. What happens is unexpected and belies the innocence of childhood.

A defiant teenage boy in a British reformatory school has a talent for long-distance running which gives hope to the school's director for a great victory. However this working-class lad has his own plans for another kind of prize.

Miles Franklin's autobiographical novel is about her life as a young girl, growing up in the wilds of Australia's outback, all the while yearning for a life of art, music and literature.