Garret Freymann-Weyr

When Polina Panova's "prince" moves out of their Venice, California, house, two ducks that live on the canals but believe themselves to be French try to help Polina, a designer of magical dresses of thread, silk, velvet, grass, and pieces of night sky, by giving her something to make her stop being sad.

A new friendship with a boy who is both attractive and intelligent helps fifteen-year-old Sophie sort out her feelings about her younger brother Erhard, who died three years earlier, her self-centered older sister, and her distant father.

As she tries to understand the closeness between her older brother and his best friend, fourteen-year-old Ellen finds her relationship with each of them changing.

Two teenagers, one obsessed with the world of ballet and the other with that of chess, join together in a quest across Europe and begin to learn not only how to connect with other people, but why.

When seventeen-year-old Leigh changes high schools his senior year to help his stepsister, he finds himself falling in love with her emotional disturbed friend, although he is still attached to a girl back home.