Homeless – Friday Brown by Vicki Wakefield

friday brownShe had escaped from home – and why not? After all, everything she ever knew was meaningless now her mother was gone. So she was running –  “trying to escape memories of her mother and the family curse.”

After spending all her years in the countryside, Friday Brown ends up homeless in the city. While she was with her mother, wherever the two of them were together – that was home. But now alone, she determined to find herself a place to be.

Through a series of events at a railway station, she develops a friendship with a strange and silent young boy. With Silence, she then comes under the wing of Arden, who along with the smouldering Malik, leads a small band of homeless kids with a Dickensian lifestyle in inner Sydney.

Belonging has always been hard for Friday. With her mother, she would traipse around the countryside – moving on when things became too stressful or demanding. From an early age, she knew the signs of an impending move – when the money ran out, or her mother was out of favour with her current employer.

After her mother’s death (presumably due to her family curse) Friday decides to run. But why is she really running away? Is life going to be any better, homeless, in the city?

Slowly, Friday adjusts to a chaotic life, with some unusual ‘housemates’ – but she is never quite comfortable with everyone, or with life in the city. Technically, they are homeless, squatting in an abandoned building till disaster strikes.

Change takes the dischordant group to the countryside, where Friday’s past gives her the strength and courage to take a stand and, occasionally, to take the lead. Relationships are tried and tested, and all in Arden’s ‘family’ discover different things about themselves and others. Instinct and cunning – are they enough to help Friday survive? Who is friend and who is foe? And what about her family curse?

Some surprising and tragic events throughout.

Selected for CBCA awards this year – it would definitely be one of my choices! What do you think?

For more reviews, see Inside a Dog or GoodReads

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