However, weeks into their mother’s alcoholic stupor, reality sinks in. To top it all off, the three teens have to work together to keep their youngest sister, eight-year-old Alisa safe and protected from Child Protective Services. At the same time, forced to acknowledge that her fourteen-year-old brother, Douglas, is losing weight at an alarming rate, Katherine tries to address his sickly appearance by giving him more food than she rations for the rest of the siblings. Katherine can no longer bicker with her younger sister, Tracey instead, their sisterly relationship deepens as they come to depend on each other.

At first, Katherine thinks she can cope with this disaster, taking charge of her younger siblings to keep them fed, clothed, and out of the foster care system. Having lost her job, she stays in bed most of the time, disconnected from the world, crying about the end of her marriage, neglecting her children, and eventually only focused on where her next drink is coming from. Now, their formerly mostly functional mother has fallen victim to her drinking problem. Their father is no longer in the picture – after cheating on their mother, he left in order to be with the other woman. Fifteen-year-old Katherine Graham lives with her three siblings and her mother in a town outside of Washington, DC. Caught between the reality of teetering on the edge of stability and the need to project normality, the book’s protagonist finds a way to grow up and mature in terrible circumstances. Following the story of four middle-class siblings forced to fend for themselves after their mother descends into alcoholism, Heather Quarles’s middle-grade novel A Door Near Here (2000) explores the struggle of feeling hungry, tired, and dirty, while attempting to keep up appearances.

A door near here by heather quarles