Bob Graham

"When a heartbroken young woman throws a gold ring into the wind in 1830, it settles in a meadow, and there it stays for seasons -- and the years -- pass. But the ring's journey is just beginning, and as time goes on, it moves at the mercy of the natural world: flung across a field, tilled into the soil, dropped from the mouth of a magpie into the sea where countless tides wash over it. Will the ring, inscribed with the words love never dies, end...

"After a long, cold winter, doors finally open, and children spill out like candies from a box. Amanda is the last one out of the apartment building, with a carton of chalk in her hands. On every inch of the pavement outside, the children draw pictures of flowers and trees, mushrooms and snails, and a few very unexpected things. It's a concrete garden. Their creativity, unfettered in the open air, brings something beautiful, something hopeful, to...