Looking for X

In this urban adventure story, a smart, bold, eleven-year-old girl from a poor neighborhood sets out to find her friend X, a mysterious homeless woman who has gone missing.

Smart and independent, 11-year-old Khyber lives with her mom, Tammy, a former stripper, and her autistic twin brothers in a poor Toronto neighborhood. Though she doesn’t have a lot in common with her classmates, Khyber does have wonderfully eccentric friends: Valerie, Toronto’s meanest waitress, and X, a homeless woman in hiding from “the secret police.” Despite having to deal with pompous social workers who make her mother cry and ignorant kids who make remarks about her brothers, Khyber manages to enjoy herself, poring over atlases, planning exotic journeys, and taking peanut butter sandwiches to X. But when Tammy decides to move her sons to a group home for proper care, Khyber’s world starts to crumble. She fights with her mom and then gets expelled from school. To make matters worse, X suddenly disappears. Khyber sets out to find her in a wild all-night odyssey of self-discovery.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8-Eleven-year-old Khyber lives with her mother and autistic twin brothers in a low-income area in Toronto. In addition to her problems at school (she skipped two grades and doesn't fit in), she deals with her mother's decision to send her brothers to a group home, some menacing skinheads, a false accusation of vandalism that gets her expelled, and a search for her homeless friend, X. Khyber loves her family and gladly goes beyond what one would expect of a child in order to help her mother and X. Her friends are an odd assortment of characters, all adults. There are just too many quirks and issues to make this book believable. Some aspects of the plot are far-fetched and everything falls into place just a little too neatly at the end. On the other hand, all of the characters seem real and natural. Khyber is a likable protagonist and readers will appreciate how she copes with her issues. If they can accept some of the improbable circumstances, they will enjoy the story.-Leslie Ann Lacika, Dingman-Delaware Middle School, Dingman's Ferry, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

"Eleven-year-old Khyber lives with her mother, a former stripper, and her autistic twin brothers in Regent Park, a poor neighborhood in Toronto. But most of the time she's perfectly happy with the way things are. She has her friends, including Valerie, the meanest waitress in the city, and X, a mysterious homeless woman who is always hiding from the "secret place." And she has big plans to explore faraway, exotic places like her namesake, the Khyber Pass "In this gritty, urban novel, an 11-year-old girl sets out to find her friend - a mysterious, homeless woman who has gone missing. Her all-night, downtown odyssey culminates in wild adventure" Cf. Our choice, 2000 When Khyber's mother decides to move her autistic brother into a special home and her homeless friend goes missing, Khyber's special world is suddenly turned upside down Eleven-year-old Khyber embarks on a desperate, all-night search for her friend, X, that proves even more wild than any adventure she has ever imagined