Jacqueline Woodson shines in this middle-grade coming-of-age book hitting on important issues of today teaching children that it's easier to face things when we aren't alone. Every week, six children from a special class are given an hour alone to talk among themselves. Gradually, they begin to open up to each other, discussing Esteban's father's deportation, Amari's worries of racial profiling, Haley's father's incarceration and her mother's death, and their fears and hope for the future.