Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
Ten-year-old Lori Jean believes that love can heal Ray, her abusive stepfather whose drunken rages have left Lori Jean and her mother beaten and bruised. Growing up impoverished in rural Georgia in the 1950s, Lori Jean survives abandonment by her biological father, as well as the deaths of her grandmother and her best friend, Carolee. Despite these tragedies, Lori Jean clings tenaciously to faith and hope. When she discovers that her stepfather was the victim of sexual abuse as a child, she struggles to "fix" Ray's problems, but unfortunately, his illness runs too deep.
