loss
— An eight-year-old's birthday celebration is interrupted by the September 11 attacks, transforming joy into confusion as dreams scatter like jigsaw pieces over New York.
— A boy recounts his great-grandfather's forced migration from Mexico and the miraculous journey of his dalmatian Pinto, who tracked him 2000 miles to California before dying of exhaustion.
— A girl befriends bear cubs, discovers her taxidermist father killed their mother, and years later must choose between saving him from a bear attack or protecting the animal.
— A girl falsely accuses her best friend of stealing her birthday watch, destroys their friendship, then discovers the watch under her bed months later.
— During a dinner of liver and broccoli, a girl dreams she travels to Depression-era Berlin and wartime Vietnam, witnessing hungry children fighting over scraps.
— A girl watches her cousin Rebecca cling to hope that her divorced father will return, even after he attempts to kidnap her and robs a bank.
— A Thai girl defies her overprotective mother to save their home by selling the family's beloved mango tree to pay off the mortgage.
— After her mother's death, a girl obsessively fills her life with activities until a poetry assignment about sadness breaks through her denial.
— A Manhattan girl spends a reluctant summer on a Kentucky farm, where a barefoot country girl teaches her to climb trees, ride horses, and watch sunrises.
— After her house burns down, Angela returns to sift through the ashes, finds her parents' charred wedding photo, and finally allows herself to grieve before reconciling with her mother.