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.

Three boys navigate their youth in Chicago, but are forced to grow up quickly when they start cooking drugs for money.

A boy looks back on the encounters he and his friend had with a troubled, violent classmate who murdered his own father.

While witnessing his boys of his neighbor's family commit chaotic damage to the people of the neighborhood, a father continues to show kindness. The neighbor's family faces their own drama until they are no longer a part of the neighborhood.

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.

The stress of poverty drives a young man to commit a robbery. But when the deal goes south and someone is shot, he must hide from the law at his brother's place.

Amidst an outbreak of child abductions across the country, two new parents with toddler twins grapple with growing paranoia and keeping their young boys safe, which begins to put a strain on their evolving marriage.

In inner-city 1980s Boston, a middle-school boy must care for himself and his baby half-brother when their mother runs away to Texas.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

Compiling notes for an English essay, a sixteen-year-old girl recounts her middle-class upbringing, kleptomania, and eventual coercion into prostitution and assisting with drug use. After she suffers violence and abuse, she is eventually rescued — but the experience traumatizes her.