A seventh-grade English teacher copes with the recent death of her father and assigns a memoir that her students love reading. However, their parents question her for her pedagogical choices because of the swear words and provocative topics in the book.

When a young girl moves with her family from England to the United States, she must navigate the foreign politics of her new school.

A young pen pal unexpectedly visits a retired professor after their enthusiastic, months-long correspondence. However, their meeting in person goes much less smoothly than their previous communication.

A Harvard College student reflects on his troubled relationship with his mother as she dies.

An extended family gathers in Maryland for Christmas and plays a game of charades. During the game, various areas of family tension are revealed.

A teacher at an orangutan school develops intimate feelings for one of his students.

A Laotian six-year-old, whose parents can't read English, struggles in school.

A depressed Indian woman trapped in a decades-long, passionless marriage recalls the one day when she truly loved her husband.

When the decision to build a new integrated school falls into the hands of an elderly woman, a small Tennessee town grows desperate to escape the control of her family, which has historically worked to prohibit progress and change.

During an unwanted conversation with a stranger on a train in India, a woman reflects on her loveless marriage to her husband — born of financial necessity — and her abandoned dream to attend college in America.