Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia

The story of August Pullman – a boy with facial differences – who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.

Jesse Aarons trained all summer to become the fastest runner in school. So he's very upset when newcomer Leslie Burke outruns him and everyone else. Despite this and other differences including that she's rich, he's poor, she's a city girl, and he's a country boy the two become fast friends. Together they create Terabithia, a land of monsters, trolls, ogres, and giants where they rule as king and queen.

Heather and Heidi play volleyball for their school team, when their family decides that they need to go to a bigger school so that they will have a better chance for scholarships. But at the new school, the twins are discovered by the basketball coach. Inspired by the true story of Heather and Heidi Burge.

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?