The present dissertation approaches three axes: childhood, abandonment, and children’s and adolescent literature. The aim of this paper is to analyze how child abandonment is presented in children’s and adolescent Contemporary Literature, determining the impact caused by this kind of literature in helpless children. Historical and sociologic trajectory studied by the historian Philippe Ariès and the researches performed by the historians Mary Del Priore and Mary Luíza Marcílio concerning Brazilian children and abandonment issues are the connecting threads for the discussion about how to build the concept the childhood. We propose a cross-sectional segmentation adding the philosophical contributions of Walter Benjamin about childhood. Concerning literature, four children’s and adolescent books that deal with the topics studied were chosen for the analysis: O Praça XV (1981), by Paula Saldanha, Cena de rua (1994), by Ângela Lago, O menino que não se chamava João e a menina que não se chamava Maria [a Brazilian fairy tale] (1999), by Georgina Martins, and Uólace e João Victor (1999), by Rosa Amanda Strausz. The field research included children and adolescents, who attended the project Ao Encontro dos Meninos e Meninas em Situação de Rua at São Martinho Foundation, a philanthropic civil society, located in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro. The methodological approach included eight reading circles, lasting around 50 minutes each, during 4 months. It was observed that literature has led boys and girls to deep thinking and speaking. Changes, dreams, fear of death, abandonment were the topics brought about and discussed by the participants. Education, school, and family are subjects present in the children’s speeches considered as solutions for a better and different life. In the fragments of history brought by the readers we can see feelings and thoughts that do not belong to the original story. At the same time, these fragments are related to a collective story.