"At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his...

For the past five years, Mitra Esfahani has known two constants: her best friend Bea Ortage and The Book--a dog-eared notebook in which she and Bea have been exchanging poems since they were thirteen. The rule of The Book are simple: No lies, no secrets, and no punctuation. This is a never-ending poem, as epic and everlasting as their friendship. Nothing is too messy of too complex for The Book - not Mitra's convoluted feelings about her absent mother,...