Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

From the Publisher: Mrs. Eva Marie Olinski is charged with appointing four students to represent her sixth-grade class in the Epiphany Middle School Academic Bowl competition. When these four students, calling themselves "The Souls, " go on to win the state Academic Bowl Championship, Mrs. Olinski begins to realize that these four students who appear to have little in common on the surface have been on a journey that interlocked their lives like pieces...

"Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. But everything is about to change. Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the...

Struggling with Asperger's, Rose shares a bond with her beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines in order to search for her pet.

Demanding to be treated the same as everyone else in spite of her blindness, Parker doles out tough-love advice to her peers, refuses to cry after losing her father, and stubbornly shuns a boy who broke her heart years earlier.

In 1932, a twelve-year-old girl who lost her sight in an accident keeps a diary, recorded by her twin sister, in which she describes life at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.