A book about empathy
When sixth graders Charlie and Colleen discover that their beloved third-grade teacher, Joseph Adams, is now homeless and living on the streets, they set out to make friends with the deeply troubled man and inspire him and members of the community to support him in his time of trouble. 
Author Note: When I was a teacher I’d take classes on walking trips along the sidewalks of Berkeley where I live. If we passed a street person asking for spare change, the children would grow silent and offered kind smiles. I wondered what the students would do if one of them ever recognized one of the homeless men—let’s say, a former teacher.
Prologue
You can be walking down a sidewalk in the middle of the day and be approached five or ten times by street people--panhandlers. Mostly guys about my dad's age. And they look perfectly able to get a job and everything. But they want me to give them money, and I'm just a twelve-year-old kid. So what do you do?
The weather is usually warm and sunny in California. I suppose that's what brings homeless people here. They hang around outside the pizza parlor and video store, so you have to walk by them if you want to rent a video or something. Some act crazy. Some smell bad. Some hold up cardboard signs that say things like
I'll work for food
HIV and homeless
and
Four children and no job
or stupid things like
Change please for the payments on my BMW
and
I can't lie, I just want a beer
Some seem friendly and smile. Some stagger around talking to themselves. I would never give a cent to a drunk.
But some of the street people really get to me. Like this woman I keep seeing crouched in a doorway with a baby in her arms. Or this man with no legs who sits outside the used record store and is always smiling. When I pass he shouts, "Have a good day, son." Why doesn't someone help him? Why can't someone give him clean clothes or something?
My dad says homeless people have taken over City Park. He says he pays good taxes for the government to take care of them. Build them shelters or cheap houses maybe. Dad says they litter the park and make it dangerous to walk there. My dad says he doesn't care where the police put the homeless people, just so it's not where we live on the hill.
"Giving change to beggars only encourages them, Charlie," my mom says. "They'll learn to live on handouts." Then she goes on and on, talking about the bears in Yellowstone who live on the food people give them and have never learned to hunt for themselves.
Sometimes if I'm walking down Fourth Street I might give a quarter to one of those street people. I mean, think about the millions of quarters I've already plugged into video games. Once I gave a homeless woman a whole dollar. She had no teeth, but she smiled at me anyway. You could tell that money made her really happy.
Sometimes I feel sorry for the street people. Sometimes I just get confused. So what do you do?
Buy
So What Do You Do?
🎬
So What Do You Do? screenplay (pdf)
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8?In this overly optimistic look at homelessness, sixth-grader Charlie Fuller is shocked to discover his beloved third-grade teacher living on the streets of his California town. Though Mr. Adams does not initially acknowledge their past connection, Charlie and his friend Colleen try to improve their former teacher's situation. They take him gifts and food and clean his cardboard house. More importantly, they tell him how he changed their lives. Over the months, the man pulls himself out of the alcoholic haze that has trapped him. When some rampaging teens tear up the homeless encampment, the children take the injured Mr. Adams back to his former classroom and, with the help of the school custodian and a local policeman, care for him. Plans are formed to get their friend an apartment, help him get started on a hoped-for career as a writer, and celebrate his years as a teacher. This is a worthy book, putting a face on a problem that many people try to ignore. By detailing the steps that can lead a successful person to homelessness, Evans creates empathy for the individuals caught in its trap. Most of the homeless people are positively portrayed. While the violence and hardship of the encampment are mentioned, they are seemingly not dangerous enough to intimidate two sheltered, rich children who visit there every day. The inherent question posed throughout is, "So What Do You Do?" when faced with an unsolvable problem. Personal action and commitment may help, but how realistic, not to mention safe, is the action outlined here? Not very.?Anne Connor, Los Angeles PL
From Kirkus Reviews
Two sixth graders find their third-grade teacher living in a cardboard box in the park and give him a fresh start in this contrived, misguided tale from Evans (The Classroom at the End of the Hall, 1995). Charlie isn't sure why he follows the filthy, shambling street person into the public library--until he realizes with a shock that it's Joe Adams, his all-time favorite teacher. When Charlie rushes up to talk, he is coldly rebuffed. Enlisting the help of classmate Colleen, another Adams fan, he begins bringing food and clean clothing to the box where Adams keeps his books and opera tapes, lying about his whereabouts to conveniently oblivious parents. As weeks pass, Adams slowly becomes less hostile, and at last explains how the combination of chemotherapy, divorce, and a publicized incident in which he shoved a bullying student destroyed his self-esteem, led him to resign, and eventually drove him to drink. Ultimately, Charlie and Colleen sneak him into his old school classroom for a week (it's spring break), while appreciative former students gather to get him back on his feet with a check, an apartment, and a pep rally. Evans pays warm tribute to the profound effects a teacher can have, and suggests that helping the homeless often requires more than finding them places to live. Still, there are several characters and subplots undeveloped, and in Charlie's example is a potentially dangerous course of action. (Fiction. 10-12)