When young Buddy falls into Santa's gift sack on Christmas Eve, he's transported back to the North Pole and raised as a toy-making elf by Santa's helpers. But as he grows into adulthood, he can't shake the nagging feeling that he doesn't belong. Buddy vows to visit Manhattan and find his real dad, a workaholic.
During World War II, a German woman, Inga, goes missing and is presumed dead. Her infant son is placed in an orphanage where, years later, he's adopted by a childless couple. The adoptive parents' happiness is shattered when Inga reappears and insists on custody of her son.
Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third.
Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Jean gets Clovis out of jail, and the two steal their son from his foster home, in addition to taking a highway patrolman hostage. As a massive dragnet starts to pursue them across Texas, the couple become unlikely folk heroes and even start to bond with the captive policeman.
A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.
Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.
An accidental meeting between a French woman who goes to South America to adopt a baby and an Argentinian woman who with her small son leaves their hopeless village in search for a better life changes both of their lives forever.
Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, sixteen year old high-schooler, Juno MacGuff, makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.
Carlo Roma and his foster-son, Toma, and their friend Beppo, are living a happy fisherman's life in San Francisco until Carlo's widowed sister-in-law, Stella, shows up with her brat-son, Rudolph, and takes over. Poor Toma gets his feelings hurt and the idea he "isn't wanted" and runs away
David's comfortable world is turned upside down when his birth mother Melissa unexpectedly reaches out, longing to meet the eighteen year old son she's only held once.
"Found" is the story of an innocent teenage boy raised up in the Appalachian Mountains on a small old fashioned homestead devoid of modern conveniences and tucked away from the broader culture at large. Through a sudden tragedy, he suddenly finds himself cast out, alone and adrift into our high-speed, hi-tech modern world until he meets a troubled family who takes him into their home for better or for worse. What he learns about himself and what others around him discover about themselves brings new meaning to the phrase "testing your faith" (James 1:2-4).
A 13 years old girl is forced to go living with another family for reasons unknown.
A cocky high school student thinks nothing of using the people around him to satisfy his self-centered needs, until someone in his life gets pregnant.
From very different backgrounds, the two women bond over their shared love for their families. As the women grow closer, Maria reveals her concern for her precocious, but lonely daughter Bella, who she fears is being bullied at school. At Anna's urging, her teenage daughter Emily takes Bella under her wings. Maria's husband, Hector, loses his job, and his ability to provide for his family. He falls into despair as he's unable to find work, and turns back to drinking. When he finds Maria at the Sparrow's house, he assumes she is cleaning houses. His pride overcomes him and demands she leave with him. Anna agrees to watch Bella as Maria leaves with Hector, hoping to reason with him, make him understand how much she loves him, and that she knows he is always there for his family. As they weigh the impact on young Bella, Anna and Mike face one of the most important decisions of their lives.
South Africa, Free State region, isolated stronghold to the Afrikaans white ethnic minority culture. In this conservative farming territory obsessed with strength and masculinity, Janno is different, secretive, emotionally frail. One day his mother, fiercely religious, brings home Pieter, a hardened street orphan she wants to save, and asks Janno to make this stranger into his brother. The two boys start a fight for power, heritage and parental love.
"Complexity" is about a young woman stuck in a place of complete uncertainty. When she meets Scott, a man who will turn her world upside down and make her question her decisions, things turn from bad to worse. "Complexity" is a coming-of-age dramedy that takes you on a roller coaster ride of family obligations, obstacles, manipulations, and the never ending journey to find true happiness.
Ever since Pam Cheney (Cheryl Ladd) lost her baby during labor, she has been struggling with depression. She is not only supported by her loving, but hard working husband Sean (Robert Desiderio), but also by her friends Ella (Polly Draper) and Terry Sabin (D. David Morin), who have also lost a baby at age three. One year after labor, Pam decides to finally take a proposal to adopt a toddler. Going through official agencies proves unsuccessful, partly due to Pam's age, partly due to the growing demand of adoption. She is advised to take care of an orphaned teenager instead, but Sean refuses this option.
Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.