Asphalt Angels
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | Ineke Holtwijk |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Front Street |
| Honors | |
| A raw, poignant story of a band of Brazilian street kids who survive — if they can — by their wits alone. Asphalt Angels centers around a boy named Alex, a street child of 13 in Brazil who has been kicked onto the city streets by his stepfather after his mother dies. He is alone and scared. This is the story of how he adapts to life in the streets with a group of other children. | |
Translated from the Dutch by Wanda Boeke.
Thirteen-year-old Alex is the main character in Asphalt Angels, an unsparing look at a band of street kids trying to survive in Rio de Janeiro without family, money, or resources. Theirs is a life of deprivation and despair, lightened by luck and tenacity and the bonds these desperate children must form with one another.
Alex is thrown into the streets by his stepfather when his mother dies. Hazards abound: drug-dealing, theft, glue-sniffing, harassment, brutality, even murder. It's not easy steering clear of them, yet Alex manages to survive, eventually making a home with 14 other boys in a house, working in an office, and attending night school.
Asphalt Angels grew from the real-life drama the author observed while on assignment. In an afterword, she reports that 10,000 children sleep in Rio's streets, and more than that number roam them by day, victims of inadequate nutrition, education, and shelter, and prey to drugs and violence. Alex is based on a real boy; his name was changed for this story.
