Parked, Hardcover

For fans of Rebecca Stead and Joan Bauer comes a scrappy, poignant, uplifting debut about family, friendship, and the importance of learning both how to offer help and how to accept it.

"A big-hearted novel with characters I wish were my friends in real life." --Gennifer Choldenko, author of the Al Capone at Alcatraz series

Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade.

Cal is tall, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her.

Jeanne Ann is roughly as enthusiastic about his help as she is about living in a van.

As the two form a tentative friendship that grows deeper over alternating chapters, they're buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters, who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering. Debut novelist Danielle Svetcov shines a light on a big problem without a ready answer, nailing heartbreak and hope, and pulling it off with a humor and warmth that make the funny parts of Jeanne Ann and Cal's story cathartic and the difficult parts all the more moving.

"Insightful and] touching...Not to be missed." --Karen Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice
"You won't be able to put it down. Trust." --ScaryMommy.com
"For readers of Dan Gemeinhart and] Katherine Applegate." --The Children's Book Review
"Relatable and beautifully told." --Commonsense Media
"Pertinent....Honest...Uplifting...Fresh." --PW
"Utterly of this moment." --Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos
"Absorbing and warmhearted." --Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series
"Realistically hopeful...Recommended." --SLC
"Sharp...Perceptive." --BCCB
"Unforgettable." --Brightly

An impatient chef once told author Danielle Svetcov, "You talk too much, you move too slow!" when she was peeling onions in his restaurant kitchen. He was right. So she doubled down on writing, which rewards thinking (and talking) and going slow. Danielle wrote for The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, The Chicago Tribune Magazine, and others before becoming a literary agent and, now, an author. With her debut novel, Parked, she writes her way back to her first loves--food and friendship. You can find Danielle across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco with her salami-loving family.