In 1943, in Naples, Italy, a handful of abandoned children left behind in the bombed-out city joins forces with Corporal Steve Connors, an American soldier cut off from his unit, to take on the German Army advancing on the city.

Twelve-year-old Billy Straight, a street kid who has fled a life of abuse and chaos at home, is forced to run for his life when he witnesses the vicious murder of a woman who turns out to be the ex-wife of a television celebrity.

"After an abusive, neglected childhood spent on welfare and in and out of homelessness in Alaska, raised by a mother who believed she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging with a bunch of straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and find her food by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling...

Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord."

Presents an examination of the lives of children who live in the drainage tunnels that connect the Mexican and American border cities of Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona.