Most Popular Books by Janice ERLBAUM

Just two hours ago, I had been heating up some lentil soup at my mom’s in Brooklyn, thinking I’d eat it and maybe read some Edith Wharton before bed. Now here I was at a runaway shelter, staring at a nun’s mustache and wondering where I was going to spend the rest of my adolescence. At fifteen, sick of her mom’s spineless reactions to abusive men–and afraid of her stepfather’s unpredictable behavior–Janice Erlbaum walked out of her family’s apartment and never returned. What followed that fateful decision is the heart of this amazing, fascinating, and disturbing memoir. From her first frightening night at a shelter, trying to sleep in a large room filled with yelling girls, Janice knew she was in over her head. She was beaten up, shaken down, and nearly stabbed by a pregnant girl. But it was still better than living at home. Just like that, she was halfway homeless, always one step away from being sent “upstate to Lockdown.” As Janice slipped further into street life, she nevertheless continued to attend high school, harbor crushes, even play the lead in the spring production of Guys and Dolls. She also roamed the streets, clubs, bars, and parks of New York City with her two best girlfriends, on the prowl for hard drugs and boys on skateboards. Together they scored coke at Danceteria, smoked angel dust in East Village squats, commiserated over their crazy mothers, and slept with one another’s boyfriends on a regular basis. Janice Erlbaum paints a wry, mesmerizing portrait of being underprivileged, underage, and underdressed in the 1980s, bouncing from shelters to group homes, from tenement squats to legendary nightclubs. A moving and tremendously entertaining ride through the seediest parts of New York City, Girlbomb provides an unflinching look at street life, survival sex, female friendships, and first loves.

Describes the author''s return to the New York City youth shelter in which she had lived as a teenage runaway, this time as a volunteer, and her relationship with Sam, a bright, sensitive, but troubled teenager from the Midwest.

A funny and heartfelt realistic middle-grade novel about friendship, family, and the meaning of luck, from author Janice Erlbaum. Eighth-grader Emma Macintyre could use some good luck. The popular kids at her school ignore her, the boy she likes is out of her league, and her best friend has been ditching her for the mean girls. Worst of all, her beloved Aunt Jenny died recently, leaving Emma and her single mom reeling with grief. Then Emma receives a mysterious letter with no return address. The letter promises that ten lucky little things will happen to her over the next thirty days—she just has to make a list of what she wants. When the things on her list start coming true, she races to understand what’s happening. How does this lucky letter work? Who sent it? And what’s going to happen when the thirty days are done?

A Bank Street Best Children''s Book of 2020 Janice Erlbaum''s Let Me Fix That for You is a quirky, touching, and laugh-out-loud middle-grade novel about a girl capable of fixing everything but her own life. Twelve-year-old Gladys Burke may not have many friends, but at least she has her empire. From her table at the back of the cafeteria, Glad arranges favors for her classmates in exchange for their friendship. She solves every problem, handles every situation, and saves every butt. But the jobs keep getting harder, and when Glad decides the problem that most needs fixing is her parents'' relationship, she finds herself in way over her head. She''ll have to call in all her favors and use all her skills to help the person who most needs it—herself.

Un peu de chance, un coup de pouce du destin, Emma en aurait bien besoin. Les gamins populaires de son école l''ignorent. Le garçon qui lui plaît, pareil. Et même sa meilleure amie la laisse tomber pour un groupe de filles pas gentilles du tout. Mais surtout, et c''est de très loin le pire de tout, Jenny, sa tante chérie, vient de mourir. Et si une lettre mystérieuse, arrivée un matin on ne sait d''où ni comment, venait bouleverser tout ça ?... Un roman d''initiation contemporain, essentiel pour les années collège.

MANIPULATIVE. TRAINWRECK. PSYCHO. Elizabeth Madigan needs too much love. As the neglected daughter of a beautiful, selfish mother, she learned early in life how to get attention through lies, but it''s never enough. At age eight, she pretends to have cancer. At age twelve, she lives a thousand lives online. At age seventeen, she''s in inpatient treatment for self-harm, blaming it on trauma from her past. But what exactly is her damage? If she knew, maybe she could stop herself before she gets busted for good. But she''s been lying so long, she''s starting to forget what''s real. And as her passionate need for her girl friends'' attention grows, she''ll do anything to keep them in her life -- including risk it. Told in four sections ("Beth," "Betty," "Eliza," and "Elizabeth"), I, LIAR is about the way we rewrite our histories, remake our selves, and revisit the same storylines and characters throughout our lives. It''s about the longing for maternal love, the passionate intensity of female friendships, and where those two overlap. From an all-girl psych rehab to a feminist bookstore to a lesbian bar in Brooklyn, I, LIAR illuminates the intimate world of women''s relationships -- with each other, with the world at large, and with themselves. For the trainwrecks, for the borderlines, for the girls who are "too much" for everybody else: This is for you.

This is the story of Janice, the daughter of a drug-addicted mother and abusive father, struggling to find her place in the world. She leaves home at 15 and finds herself in 1980s Hell''s Kitchen, a world filled with prostitutes and crack heads. Out of tragedy comes redemption and Janice turns her life around.