OUR MISSING HEARTS (PB)

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard's library. He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. But a letter containing only a cryptic drawing will draw Bird into a journey to find his mother, a dissident poet who left the family three years ago.