From a young writer trying to win a girl to a boy grappling with confusion about sin, each protagonist in this collection of nine short stories experiences a journey, an encounter, or a revelation that transforms them.

In "Rosa's Gift and Other Stories," author Michael Cantwell presents these stories reflecting the joys and sorrows of all stages of human life. In the title story, "Rosa's Gift," Peter Collins, a semiretired commercial artist from New York, visits Guatemala, where he studies Spanish. As he wanders around Antigua, he meets a teenage Mayan indigene, a little girl who sells...

From a young writer trying to win a girl to a boy grappling with confusion about sin, each protagonist in this collection of nine short stories experiences a journey, an encounter, or a revelation that transforms them.

In "Rosa's Gift and Other Stories," author Michael Cantwell presents these stories reflecting the joys and sorrows of all stages of human life. In the title story, "Rosa's Gift," Peter Collins, a semiretired commercial artist from New York, visits Guatemala, where he studies Spanish. As he wanders around Antigua, he meets a teenage Mayan indigene, a little girl who sells...

No one is more surprised than Philip Nason when an uprising occurs within the walls of a New York rehabilitation hospital. Moments after Phil, director of recreation, hears that a group of mostly paraplegic patients have staged a rebellion, he learns that the hospital's director is furious and thinks the patients were inspired by Phil's current-events reading program. Now with his job in jeopardy, Phil is torn between his desire to empower his patients and pleasing hospital bureaucrats.

After the rebel patients beg Phil to create an activity program to help them win the respect of...

After moving from town to town, Philip Nason and his family finally settle in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit. It's the summer of 1937, shortly after Philip turns eleven. A lonely child, he inhabits a world of daydreams, filling notebooks with his cartoon fantasies. He discovers he's unable to compete in the rough-and-tumble games that are a boy's rite of passage.

Then Philip meets Jeremiah Casey-bigger, older, stronger, better at games than everyone else, but somehow isolated by his exceptional abilities. In Philip, Casey finds a fellow dreamer and artist. Together, they...

Max the mouse didn't mean to run away from home. He had a good gig with his owner, Melissa. He was well fed, and he liked riding on the little girl's shoulder when she walked around the house. But Max was really curious to see what was on the other side of the fence in the backyard.
Once over the fence, Max joins a group of endangered mice to found a new colony in a deserted field where mice are safe from the evil urban alley cats. But life, especially for mice, being what it is, the little group finds no peace in their private Eden. So Max cleverly rigs up a balloon for an escape to...

Max the mouse didn't mean to run away from home. He had a good gig with his owner, Melissa. He was well fed, and he liked riding on the little girl's shoulder when she walked around the house. But Max was really curious to see what was on the other side of the fence in the backyard.
Once over the fence, Max joins a group of endangered mice to found a new colony in a deserted field where mice are safe from the evil urban alley cats. But life, especially for mice, being what it is, the little group finds no peace in their private Eden. So Max cleverly rigs up a balloon for an escape to...