YA Dystopian Sci-Fi. Rich skyscraper girl gets trapped on ground level and meets a group of orphaned street kids with surrogate father figure. Read around 1999-2002.

[Tori]

I read this book around 20 years ago but I am unsure if it was new at the time. I got it from my local library in the YA Sci-Fi section (I have since been back but I could not find it). I believe it is centred around a young girl who lives in the skyscrapers and is bored with her perfect life. She travels down to ground level where the poor people live. This is something the high rise kids did for a thrill. While she is down on ground level there is some kind of riot (I think breaking up a live band – I think that type of music was banned in the towers) and she gets trapped on the ground. She ends up getting linked up with a group of street-rat orphan type kids. They have a surrogate father type figure who bands them together. The only other detail I remember is that the kids/teens used to play in pipes (maybe sewers?) on some type of boards and would race each other. Their version of skateboarding I think.

[Rainbowheart]

River Rats?

[Tori]

No, it’s in an urban setting. Middle of a city full of sky scrappers. The rich may have lived in towers so tall they were above the clouds? But I’m not 100% sure on that.
Thanks for the suggestion!

[Rainbowheart]

Does anything on the 20th Century YA and Middle Grade Science Fiction list look familiar?

[Minnikin]

The Thousandth Floor series by Katharine McGee?

[Rainbowheart]

It can't be that. The Thousandth Floor was pubbed in 2016, and OP read her book about 20 years ago.

[Tori]

What a great list RainbowHeart! If I was ever going to find this book surely it would be on this list. So many of the books were similar to the one I am after. But alas, after reading all the descriptions, none of them fit.
It makes me wonder if the author is Australian or a New Zealander? (I live in New Zealand). I have been googling the plot of this book sporadically over the last 7 years and have never had any luck. Maybe it’s just not a very well known author.

In reading the descriptions from the list I remembered that the surrogate father type figure is blind. Or he has some kind of physical ailment.

[Bonnie]

The Tunnels Of Ferdinand?

[Rainbowheart]

Ooooh, good find! And it's Australian, so it's gotta be the one.

[Tori]

No afraid it’s not that one!

[Rainbowheart]

Oh, no? I thought it sounded really close. Back to the drawing board, lol.

Does anything on these lists look familiar?

Australian Children's and Young Adult Science Fiction

New Zealand Science Fiction for Children and/or Young Adults

[Tori]

No, none of these either RainbowHeart!

[Rainbowheart]

The Onager?

Semi-lethal sunlight and viral plagues compel most people in the 21st century to shelter in hi-tech artificial safety, uninterested in their future. But for Lana Berry, the future has suddenly become incredibly important; she must go 'Under' to the forgotten world underground, to find the dark secret of the onager.

[Tori]

No, not the Onager :(

[Rainbowheart]

Was the girl a teenager?

Do you remember if there was any romance? Anything about her family life? What did she do in the skyscrapers all day before she left? Did she go to school or have a job, or was she in her apartment all the time?

[Rainbowheart]

Outside?

The mysterious man is a kind of Pied Piper figure.

[Miriam]

This sounds like a book I've been looking for for a long time. Read around a similar time in Australia. I thought her dad was investigated for some sort of crime and they were going to get shipped off Earth and she hid (or they were kicked out) on the streets?

[Kris]

Note: Tori (OP: original poster) was last active on the site in February 2022.

[Elyssa]

It could be Breakaway by Phil Cummings?

[Bargle]

Link for Elyssa's suggestion. Breakaway by Phil Cummings.