Chicago teen Meri Beckley's pride of living in a land of peace, prosperity, and truth crumbles when questions following her mother's death reveal buried facts, especially that words can have great power. When Meri Beckley looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels pride in the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the governor presides. But when her mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking....

"It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come. But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach...

Fourteen-year-old Sparrow Cooke of Brooklyn has always been the kind of child who prefers reading books to playing with friends (not that she has many of those) and since fifth grade the one person who seemed to understand her was the school librarian--so when Mrs. Wexler was killed in an accident, Sparrow's world came apart, and when she was found on the edge of the school roof everyone assumed that it was a suicide attempt, which Sparrow denies,...

When twelve-year-old Eric's parents are deployed to Iraq, he goes to live with grandparents he hardly knows in a small town in North Dakota, but his grandfather's hostility and the threat of losing the dog he has rescued are too much and Eric runs away.

After the death of her father, Marigold leaves California behind to live with her aunt in rural New York where she feels caught between her old life and new one when she forms a special connection with a fellow photographer.