Deborah Burgess
A story of a young boy who becomes an elective mute after witnessing what he believes to be the killing by his older brother of a teenage boy. The young boy's brother then tells him not to say anything because of the trouble it would cause in the family... so he doesn't say anything again. The problem is that the young boy so enjoys his acceptance by others of his mutism that it brings his family, a loving and caring farm family, to the brink of financial ruin in medical and psychological costs to cure him. Based on a true story, this is the intelligent telling of a family in crisis, and the work of doctors in dealing with this mental illness.
Blood Brothers- While coming of age in the inner city, Darryl Crawford, a young African-American man, witnesses a gang-related murder and is horrified to discover that his beloved older brother Sly is one of the perps. Darryl grapples with his conscience over informing on Sly -- but this fear becomes secondary when the remaining gang members close in on both brothers and threaten their lives.
Twenty years after the American people have been told the oil has run out and disease has scared them into complacency, the United States has become a fascist state. One man, former race car driver Franklyn Hart, now a puppet spokesman for public transportation, rebuilds his race car and sets off to California from Boston where people have returned to living life like they were twenty years prior.
