A young Hawaiian girl dreams of a better life for her family in the face of intense familial conflict, physical and emotional abuse, and death.

A doting husband tends to his brain cancer addled-wife by reading Jane Austen to her. However, the purity of this activity is jeopardized when he attends a life-changing talk at his local book club.

Despite his children and grandchildren living on the futuristic New Earth, an elderly man refuses to evacuate a destroyed Earth because of his ties to the land and its environment. With the help of two young girls, he learns to capture some of the magic of his home away from home.