In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue -- Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family...

Minni lives in the poorest part of Mumbai, where access to water is limited, and she often has to wait hours to use the communal tap. Lately, though, even that access is threatened by water shortages and thieves who are stealing this precious commodity -- an act that Minni accidentally witnesses one night. Meanwhile, in the high-rise building where she has begun working as a maid, she discovers that water streams out of every faucet and there's even...

In 1903 Brooklyn, fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom's life changes for the worse when his parents, Russian immigrants, invent the teddy bear and turn their apartment into a factory, while nearby the glitter of Coney Island contrasts with the dismal lives of children dwelling under the Brooklyn Bridge

Montana-born Tex dreams of following in his grandfather's footsteps and kayaking down one of the world's last unconquered wild rivers. When he finally gets enough sponsors, Rex heads to South America to tackle the river known as El Furioso. In Columbia he hires seventeen-year-old Myriam Calambás to be his guide. Myriam longs to go to a university, become a reporter, and tell the world what is happening to her world. Can the two avoid the clashes...

Sofía Acosta, a fifth grader trying to fit into her ballet-obsessed Cuban American family and her affluent suburban New York community, learns to speak up for herself and others when she mistakenly reveals a visiting dancer's plan to defect to the United States.