While The Breadwinner was inspired by an interview with a mother and a girl who disguised herself as a boy in a refugee camp,[7] the subsequent books in the series were more imaginative explorations of how children would survive.

It follows a young girl in her day-to-day life in a poor area of Toronto[8] and it received the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature in 2000.

[9] One of her best-known works is the 2004 book The Heaven Shop, which tells of a family of orphans in Malawi who are struggling with sudden displacement as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

[10] In 2006, she wrote the best-seller I Am a Taxi, which tells the story of a Bolivian boy named Diego whose family was accused of smuggling coca paste, which is used to produce cocaine.

[15][16] In 2014, she published Moon at Nine, a YA novel based on the true story of two teenage girls who were arrested and thrown in prison in Iran, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.