"Stonebridge High's resident bad boy, Wesley "Big Mac" Mackenzie, is failing senior year--thanks to his unchecked anger, rowdy friends, and a tendency to ditch his homework for skateboarding and a secret photography obsession. So when his mom drags him to a production of The Nutcracker, Wes isn't interested at all . . . until he sees Tristan Monroe. Mr. Nutcracker himself. Wes knows he shouldn't like Tristan; after all, he's a ballet dancer, and Wes...

In the poverty of the Appalachian coal country in 1908, eight-year-old Minna's life gets even more difficult after her father dies of black lung, and that winter she cannot go to school because she does not have a coat--until the quilting mothers make her a coat using pieces of cloth from their own lives, each with a special story behind it.