A young boy lives with his parents, former Libyan aristocrats exiles, in Cairo. Before, during, and after his mother's death he finds comfort in Naima, the family's maid with whom he shares a closer relationship than he does with his parents.

During a trip to Morocco, a writer meets a young boy destined for a tragic, inescapable life on the stage at the Dancing Boy.

A wealthy but sad merchant meets a man in the City of Peace who tells him of a gate that will allow the merchant to step twenty years into the past and visit his former self. He travels back in time and learns that nothing can erase the past.

A young boy grows up avoiding his abusive mother and idolizing two men in his life: his father and a boy in his class. But when both of his heroes betray him, he turns to his mother for comfort.

In Kairwan, Tunisia, a man in an arranged marriage falls for a woman who is promised to another. His months-long obsession culminates in a surprise on his wedding day.

In a dystopian society where select boys are surgically mutilated and used as economic tools, a teenager helps track down and capture one of the boys who recently escaped from captivity. Though his goal is to return the escapee to the wealthy creator of these boys, the teenager soon begins to question the entire premise of their society.

On his sixth birthday, a young boy receives a surprise present that forever changes his perspective on life.

After a university student returns home from to Mali to find al-Qaeda has thrown his hometown into a state of chaos and destruction, he finds himself lost in the desert, with an unpredictable technology age genie emerging from his iPad to guide him to safety.

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 black boy lives with his parents and older brother in Harlem. Though his older brother will tell their parents they are going to the movies together, he often ditches his younger brother to hang out with his friends. Meanwhile, the younger boy explores New York City and its subway, and learns about the racism around him.