"Sixteen-year-old, not-so-openly-gay Simon Spier is blackmailed into playing wingman for his classmate or else his sexual identity--and that of his pen pal--will be revealed"--.
As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.
The Middle East has long been a hotbed of conflict, and Israelis and Palestinians have fought over territory for many years. Through the friendship of two boys, one in the West Bank and one in Jerusalem, readers learn about the heavy cost of continual violence.
Jessica, Elizabeth, and the rest of the Sweet Valley kids are looking forward to getting their pictures taken to send to their pen pals in Alaska, but disaster strikes at lunch.
When her best friend Ida moves to China with her missionary parents in the late 1800s, Mollie receives letters from her, including tales of Lottie Moon, a groundbreaking female missionary.
In the midst of adjusting to middle school and having a girlfriend, Franklin "Ike" Saturday's life becomes even more complicated when he writes a letter to Benjamin Franklin as an extra-credit assignment and gets a reply, beginning a correspondence that could change history.
When Ava writes a thank you to Santa in January, he writes back and sets off a year's worth of correspondence where they exchange information about their daily lives and discuss their shared love of Christmas.
A 12-year-old Indian immigrant girl in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner's son become pen pals, and eventually best friends, through a series of revealing letters exploring such topics as environmental activism, immigration, and racism.
