In this twist on "The Nightingale," Little John, despite his own proverty and grief, reaches out to Gayle, an unhappy foster child living next-door who sings beautifully and hides a great secret.
A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.
Beth Anne Reimer is placed in foster care after her father is accused of being a serial killer, but when he disappears, the police want to use her as bait to lure her father in, while Beth isn't sure what to believe.
Seventeen-year-old Sticky lives to play basketball at school and at Lincoln Rec Center in Los Angeles and is headed for the pros, but he is unaware of the many dangers--including his own past--that threaten his dream.
When their mother abandons them and their father ends up in jail again, ten-year-old Sara and her mentally troubled sister are thrust back into the foster care system.
Grace, a scheming runaway, JJ, her fostercare sister, and Mick, the son of a petty thief, become entangled in the investigation of a teen prostitute's murder in a small, corrupt Montana town.
Sixteen-year-old Callie Knowles fights her compulsion to write constantly, even on herself, as she struggles to cope with foster care, her mother's life in a mental institution, and her belief that she killed her father, a minister, who has been missing for a year.
