A high-school senior caring for her younger brother and his best friend, Trusty, a mute Siberian Husky, packs up their car and sets out for Alaska in an effort to find inspiration and follow her dreams.

"One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude....

A haunting coming of age novel told in a series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the life of Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent, it's a story of what it's like to grow up in high school, tracing a course through uncharted territory in the world of first dates, family dramas and new friends.

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.

Imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life.