A poor, 9-year-old, Black boy travels with a church camp to visit a house in a wealthy, white neighborhood with a pool to play in and lots of food. When the group's usual host is out of town and the van takes them to a Black woman's house instead, the boy begins to learn lessons about race and class that he does not yet fully understand.

A young girl works to impress her highly critical parents and submits to a terrible fate as she struggles to meet their impossible standards.

A five year old child to a new home in a sandy region near miners and must navigate the seemingly random changes and curious characters she meets along the way.

A boy living in poverty in Louisiana needs a winter coat, but can't afford one because his father is too afraid to work.

A child with an intellectual disability is endlessly abused by his stepmother, but takes refuge in his grandmother’s kindness. However, when his grandmother dies mysteriously in a fire, he finds a different way to cope.

A four-year-old Southern boy can read novels but has never spoken a word in his life. When he goes to his family's Fourth of July picnic, he must decide whether it is the appropriate moment to speak—or if there ever will be one.

When her father gives her a dreadfully plain hat, a young girl hatches a plan to get rid of it.

A four-year-old black boy vaguely recalls a mixture of occurrences that puzzled him, including a sentenced hanging in his town of a man who allegedly murdered his wife.

After losing his parents in Turkey, a newly orphaned boy starts a new life in the Russian town of Batum and yearns to be like the other boys, complete with a Russian cap of his own.

A young mother in the rural Northeast writes magical children's books based on her daughter's adventures. Years later, the mother dies, and her daughter returns to her childhood house to find out whether or not the magical world she played in as a child really exists.