After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

Cole Matthews returns to civilization after his year of exile in the Alaskan wilderness and is ready to face high school, but when the school bullies begin to target his friend, Peter, Cole feels his rage once again coming to the surface and worries high school may prove harder to survive than the wilderness.

When sullen teenager Dylan Barstow is caught joyriding in a stolen car he is sent to his ex-Marine uncle for the summer, but soon they are on the way to Papua New Guinea in search of a World War II fighter plane and Dylan discovers that defiance is not a survival skill when you are lost in a jungle.

Thirteen-year-old Ricky, the Mexican American son of a former Drug Enforcement Agency man, tries to avenge his mother's murder by crossing over into Mexico to steal a high-tech radar plane from drug smugglers.

When, protected by the branches of one of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela witnesses the destruction of her Mayan village and the murder of nearly all its inhabitants, she vows never to climb again until, after she and her traumatised sister find safety in a Mexican refugee camp, she realizes that only by climbing and facing their fears can she and her sister hope to have a future.