A discussion of child abuse, explaining what it is, looking at different forms of abuse, encouraging young people to seek help from a trusted adult, and providing coping strategies.
In Oregon, eleven-year-old Hope begins coping with her mother's verbal abuse by devising survival strategies for herself based on a history unit about the Holocaust, and meanwhile she works toward buying a pair of purple hiking boots by helping at a second-hand shop.
Gerald, a teenager who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, must face the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved.
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.
In the journal she is keeping for English class, sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles the changes in her life when her abusive father abandons her and her brother, and her mother follows him.
Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.
Still troubled by his older brother's violent suicide, eighteen-year-old Dillon becomes deeply involved in the terrible secret of his friend Jennifer, who feels she can tell no one what her stepfather is doing to her.
Precious Jones, a sixteen-year-old girl who is pregnant with her second child by her father, is pushed by her courageous African-American teacher to learn to read, and discovers the truth about herself and her life.
