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.
In 1947, his head filled with the advice and wisdom of his runaway father, thirteen-year-old Freddy moves his mother from their Georgia farm into town and takes on the challenge of holding his family together.
Eighteen-year-old Indigo is looking forward to becoming a full-time waitress after high school graduation, but her life is turned upside down by a large check given to her by a customer who appreciates that she cares enough to scold him about smoking.
Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring basketball player, must come to terms with his divided loyalties when he moves from the Hispanic inner city to a white suburban neighborhood.
Starting a new school year, everything is "easy-peasy, simple-pimple" for Charlie until her strict teacher assigns a tough school project and Charlie's mother loses her job.
In 1945 Russia, those who own German shepherds are considered traitors, but thirteen-year-old Mikhail and his family are determined to keep the dog a dying man brought them, while his classmate Katia strives to learn his secret.
A teenage girl tries to balance her life, but her time is split between her first love, a cake-decorating business, her dad's reality television show, and her efforts to find her missing mother.
