problem families

Memoir of journalist Jeannette Walls about her dysfunctional family that at times soared high--her father, when sober, would teach her and her siblings about geology, physics, and zest for life, but when drunk was destructive; and her mother, a "free spirit," hated the idea of domesticity. As a result, Jeannette and her siblings raised themselves and made their own prosperity, even as their parents became homeless.

When her uncle agrees to pay the tuition at a private boarding school, seventeen-year-old Pearl hopes to escape the homelessness and drama of life with her mother, a former rock star who has ruined her life with drugs.

Widow Anne Dunne takes her three children--one who is suicidal, one who is a drug user, and one who is withdrawn--on a sailing trip hoping they can reconnect as a family, but dangerous weather and an individual who wants them dead threaten to ruin her plans.

Describes the types of dysfunctional families and how they affect the children, depicting four specific examples and suggesting where to go for help.

Ellen Kaplan returns to her affluent Pennsylvania home after a two-year jaunt about Europe only to find that her family has taken in a fun loving border who has managed to capture her parents' as well as her brother's heart.

Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother's calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.

Stephanie's relationship with her best friend, Rachel, changes during her first year in junior high as she tries to conceal a family problem and meets a new girl from California.

Gwen, confident her mother who ran away five years earlier is going to return soon and take her to live in France, decides not to make any friends, but her plans fall through when Clara, a new eighth-grader, insists on being friends, and together the two sort out their place with friends, school, and family.

As her irritating family prepares to celebrate her grandfather's eightieth birthday, sixteen-year-old Lily yearns for just one whole perfect day together.

Kidnapped seventeen years before, a man's daughter by a former marriage appears at his new home in Pittsbugh and affects the entire family.