Mercè López

A history of smoke and its ability to help in areas such as cooking and medicine and its ability to harm such as in a fire.

Found wandering alone in a bombed-out Afghan school, 15-year-old Parvana mystifies American military forces by remaining silent, while spending her time remembering the past four years of her life, having been reunited with her mother and sisters and living in a village where her mother has finally managed to open a school for girls.

Twenty poets each share a poem about a mistake they made as a young person and also provide a short statement on what they learned from it.