In post-Taliban Afghanistan, Parvana is held on a U.S. military base and interrogated as a possible terrorist, reflecting on the previous four years of her life she spent with her mother and sisters while she waits to learn her fate.

Brandon is visiting his dad on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the attack comes; Reshmina is a girl in Afghanistan who has grown up in the aftermath of that attack but dreams of peace, becoming a teacher and escaping her village and the narrow role that the Taliban believes is appropriate for women--both are struggling to survive, both changed forever by the events of 9/11.

Jameela feels relatively secure, sustained by her Muslim faith and the love of her mother, Mor. But when Mor dies, Jameela's father impulsively decides to start a new life in Kabul where Jameela ultimately becomes an orphan after being abandoned in a busy marketplace by her father and stepmother. With only the memory of her mother to sustain her, Jameela finds the strength to face those who abandoned her when fate brings them together again.

Only eighteen when she is sent to Afghanistan, British army medic Elinor Nielson is continually at odds with her hardnosed bunkmate, Heidi Larson, but connects with a mysterious Afghan girl and local children, as well as an American lieutenant.

Seventh-grader Jess and her friends establish the Order of the Oleander to collect supplies for an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan, where two of their parents are deployed, but when disaster strikes and many blame the Order, Jess must find a way to go on.

Thirteen-year-old Kaleb has always looked up to his older stepbrother, Luke, in snowboarding and everything else, so when Luke is wounded in Afghanistan Kaleb is devastated--and to honor his brother he is set on competing on the difficult slopestyle course.