A divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.

After a young Jewish boy moves to Berlin with his family, he learns that his family agreed to watch a boy from the mental institution on the weekends. The two become friends, and the boy learns more about himself through meeting the other boy.

A little girl navigates her relationships with two boys in her elementary school class, a brash bully and a shy victim, and learns about the nature of suffering.

In contemporary times, a fifteen-year-old creative writing whiz is sent to a gifted creatives summer camp in Massachusetts, where he meets a young male trombonist. As the two become friends and the writer gets to know the trombonist’s family and their troubles, he turns the trombonist and his dying sister into novel characters. Everything changes when the trombonist discovers the writer’s manuscript.

A girl going through puberty hopelessly tries to hold onto childhood during a day at the beach, but meddling mothers push her to grow up.

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 high school boy makes a habit of stealing cars, picking up girls, and skipping school. When he begins to worry that he is getting into too much trouble, the boy must decide whether to seek help or continue his criminal lifestyle.

A 5-year-old boy with a unique way of seeing the world feels alienated from his mother and tells her that he does not need her anymore. This viewpoint later causes him to lash out at his family, leading him to reflect on himself and his life.

When a boy comes to a new town after the death of a loved one, he struggles to perform daily tasks and adapt to the unfamiliar surroundings.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.