"Etan has stopped speaking since his mother left. His father and grandfather don't know how to help him. His friends have given up on him. When Etan is asked to deliver a grocery order to the outskirts of town, he realizes he's at the home of Malia Agbayani, also known as the creature. Malia stopped going to school when her acute eczema spread to her face, and the bullying became too much. Soon, other kids tease Etan for being friends with the creature....

"Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates."--Title page verso.

"Judith stopped talking long ago when Mom left her in the care of beloved Aunt Cora. Going back into a regular fifth-grade classroom won't be easy, but she has her Dog and new friend who will help her through"--

"Judith can't speak. But when her close-knit community of Roswell Station is attacked by enemies, Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice"--

January 1988. Martin Pistorius, aged twelve, fell inexplicably sick. First he lost his voice and stopped eating. Then he slept constantly and shunned human contact. Doctors were mystified. Within eighteen months he was mute and wheelchair-bound. Martin's parents were told an unknown degenerative disease left him with the mind of a baby and less than two years to live. Martin was moved to care centers for severely disabled children. The stress and...

When Elise leaves homeschooling for public school, she copes by speaking as little as possible, but soon her silence becomes an impediment to friendship and to dealing with family secrets.

harity may have mad math skills and a near-perfect memory, but with a mouth that can't speak and a body that jumps, rocks, and howls unpredictably, most people incorrectly assume she cannot learn. Charity's brain works differently from most people's because of her autism, but she's still funny, determined, and kind. So why do people treat her like a disease or ignore her like she's invisible? When Charity's parents enroll her in a public junior high...

"By all appearances, Frank and Maggie share a happy, loving marriage. But for the past six months, they have not spoken. Not a sentence, not a single word. Maggie isn't sure what, exactly, provoked Frank's silence, though she has a few ideas... Then Frank finds Maggie collapsed in the kitchen, unconscious, an empty package of sleeping pills on the table. Rushed to the hospital, she is placed in a medically induced coma while the doctors assess the...

"Parker hasn't spoken since he watched his father die five years ago. He communicates through writing on slips of paper and keeps track of his thoughts by journaling. A loner, Parker has little interest in school, his classmates, or his future. But everything changes when he meets Zelda, a mysterious young woman with an unusual request: 'treat me like a teenager'"--

The lives of Francine, a woman who had been an eyewitness as a child to her mother's murder; Harriet, an aging and bored beauty; and Teddy, a handsome but murderously psychopathic young man, collide in a harrowing and fateful climax.