The novel follows Young Ju, who moves from Korea to the United States as a child, through family poverty, her father’s violence, and cultural dislocation. It quietly builds the pain of an immigrant family over time.

In the America she imagined as heaven, a girl faces reality.

A peaceful valley protected by an enchanted forest faces danger as the forest’s power fades, and Tilja sets out with her companions to find the magician who can save them. The fantasy joins the weakening of magic with acts of courage.

As magic weakens in the valley, a girl begins to discover her own power.

As a poetry collection inspired by twentieth-century American art, the poems respond to paintings, sculpture, and photographs and reopen the experience of looking at art from another angle. The book gathers acts of artistic response into a single volume.

The poems create new ways of seeing by speaking with works of art.

A boy who believes he is responsible for his father and stepmother’s deaths faces a string of teen suicides in town and the mystery of carved wooden objects. The novel moves as a psychological suspense story shaped by guilt and loss.

Guilt slowly breaks the quiet air of the town.

In verse-like lineation, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn wavers between her determination to go to college, love, changing friendships, and the pressure of faith. The details of everyday life bring out both the strength and uncertainty of adolescence.

Only her wish to go to college remains certain while the girl keeps wavering.