Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning books "Rachel and her children" and "Amazing Grace", and to the children he's portrayed there, to share their journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood.

Abused by an alcoholic, unemployed father, Doug Wallace and his seven siblings barely survived childhood--fleeing in the night from landlords, scrambling for food, and burning down the only home they ever owned to collect insurance money. In this raw testimony of a heart-breaking, hardscrabble childhood, Doug Wallace paints an unforgettable portrait of a child determined to free himself from the cycle of poverty that strangled his family for generations....

Cameron and Ethan are happily married, and the family boatbuilding business is thriving. When Phillip meets a woman who has a family connection to Seth, they join forces to secure the boy's future.

Tess, a simple country girl in nineteenth-century England, is sent by her family to meet her supposed kin, but is destroyed by her father's continued and determined efforts to use her in order to regain the family's former social standing.