Credit: Monica Almeida/The New York Times

A pair of great articles appeared in the New York Times on Monday and Tuesday that shouldn’t be missed.  As part of their “Running in the Shadows” series, the pieces combine to consider the growing epidemic of child runaways, offer a challenging perspective of why and how children and teenagers live on the streets, and evaluate what is being done to help them.

“Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways” looks at the growing epidemic and some individual profiles while “For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival” analyzes the increasing dangers from sex predators and pimps.  Both are accompanied by excellent audio/video slide shows.