Having moved out of the housing project and into a new home along with his mother and sister, ten-year-old Junebug discovers that bullies are everywhere and that the elderly can make great friends.
An inquisitive young boy who lives with his mother and younger sister in a rough housing project in New Haven, Connecticut, approaches his tenth birthday with a mixture of anticipation and worry.
Nine-year-old Isabella doesn't like to share, until a tornado destroys a neighbor's house and she realizes that the money she has earned to buy a swimming pool might be put to a better use.
As thirteen-year-old Azad tries desperately to cling to the life he has known, the political situation in Iran during the war with Iraq finally forces his family to flee their home and seek safety elsewhere.
Although Zana, an eleven-year-old Albanian girl, experiences the turmoil and violence of the 1999 conflict in her native Kosovo, she remembers her father's admonition to not let her heart become filled with hate.
