Homeless in the Great Plains: Room One by Andrew Clements

Families without homes are unknown in Plattsford, Nebraska. Instead there are homes without families in Plattsford, a small prairie town gradually dying as more and more residents move away and leave abandoned farms behind.

But when Ted Hammond, the solitary sixth-grader in his now one-room school, sees a girl's face behind the window of a left-behind farmhouse, his hobby of reading detective mysteries kicks in. Back with his notebook after school for a quick look around, Ted's investigations lead him to April, whose mother and little brother are hiding inside the delapidated house. A girl about his age, April reluctantly tells Ted that her father was killed in Iraq and that their elderly car broke down nearby on the way to her aunt' home in Colorado. April's mother is too proud to ask for public help, so Ted promises to take on the project of taking food to the family without his own family's knowledge.

While making a second supply run to the deserted farm, Ted is spotted by his teacher, who questions him about trespassing on the property. Ted is torn between his promise to April, his reluctance to lie to his teacher, and his duty as a citizen to find long-term assistance for the homeless family.

As in his recent novel, No Talking, reviewed here July 23, Clements' talent for combining deep character development, absorbing plot, and the realistic introduction of genuine moral considerations into his work shows up here in Room One. For novels in which the natural drive of boys for novelty and action leads to unforeseen consequences, Andrew Clements is the modern master. His outcomes, never ex machina, require his main characters to use their ingenuity and consider social value systems in their resolution.