Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Andrea Elliott's Invisible Child follows eight years in the life of Dasani, a girl living in a Brooklyn shelter whose imagination matches the scale of the city's skyscrapers. Elliott traces Dasani's childhood alongside her family's history, from slavery through the Great Migration northward. As Dasani grows up, New York City's homeless crisis deepens the divide between rich and poor. She navigates a world marked by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care, becoming a fierce protector of her siblings. When she enrolls in a boarding school to escape city life, she confronts a difficult question: can she leave poverty without abandoning her family and herself? Elliott's narrative examines resilience, family bonds, and the effects of inequality through Dasani's story. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.