From the award-winning author of The Patron Saint of Butterflies and The World from Up Here comes a story about grieving hearts, broken families, and how speaking out can save them both. Saying goodbye is never easy.Everything changed after Pippa and Jack's mother died last spring. Pippa stopped speaking, Jack started picking fights, and their father's struggling business began to fail. Now, with school starting again, Pippa doesn't know how she'll manage a class presentation on Spartan warriors when she can't even find the words to tell her father that she wishes he were home more. And Jack is struggling to understand his feelings for the mysterious girl next door. But when Jack and Pippa realize that their dad is getting so desperate for cash to keep the family afloat that he might be going to extreme -- and illegal -- lengths to make ends meet, they are faced with the biggest decision of their lives. How far are they willing to go to keep their family together?Stealing Our Way Home is a poignant, deeply affecting novel about falling apart, finding your voice, and the power of letting go. Praise for The World from Up Here:"Galante creates a realistically complex character in Wren, sensitively portraying her anxieties and her realizations about how she holds herself back." -- Publishers Weekly"Galante's penned a poignant tale of self-discovery." -- Kirkus Reviews Cecilia Galante is the author of books for children, teens, and adults, including The World from Up Here and Stealing Our Way Home. Her first novel, The Patron Saint of Butterflies, won a NAIBA Book of the Year Award and was an Oprah's Book Club Teen Reading Selection, a Book Sense Pick, and a Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year. In addition to teaching eighth grade English, Cecilia also teaches fiction writing at Wilkes University's graduate creative writing program. She lives in Kingston, Pennsylvania. "We were talking about the ways they lined up for battle!" Mitch Stevens yells from the back row. "Ah, that's right," Miss Rhodes answers. "Who remembers what that was called?"Multiple hands shoot up in the air. Miss Rhodes surveys the class, looking pleased. "Jeremy?""It was called a flanks formation," Jeremy answers."Very close." Miss Rhodes walks over to the board and writes out a word. PHALANX. "It's pronounced 'FA-links,'" she says. "And what does this word mean?""It means they stood side by side, locking their shields and moving like one gigantic wall," Jeremy answers. "No one ever broke ranks or fell behind. That way, the enemy never got through." "Excellent," Miss Rhodes says. "Now let's talk a little bit about the weapons they used. Which, out of all of them, was the most important?" I'm only listening with one ear, because I already know the answer. Any Spartan warrior's most essential tool in battle was his shield, an enormous bronze disc that weighed close to thirty pounds. Besides protecting them from enemy blows, a Hoplite shield was also used as a weapon in its own right and to carry the dead off the field. Instead I'm thinking about what Dad did. Or at least what I think he did. Him and Jack, together. I still can't get those words out of my head. Spiderman. Batman. Middlebury. Or the way Jack's face looked when he saw the Batman mask on the floor of his room. The way he grabbed my wrist and yelled at me to write down what I knew in my little pink book and then told me that everything was going to be okay. Why does everyone say that everything is always going to be okay? What if it isn't? What if it never is again? Praise for The World from Up Here:"Galante creates a realistically complex character in Wren, sensitively portraying her anxieties and her realizations about how she holds herself back." -- Publishers Weekly"Galante's penned a poignant tale of self-discovery." -- Kirkus Reviews