Nina, a young girl unsure of her role in her communist society, befriends a dog named Laika, who dreams of finding a home and is being studied in Nina's father's lab as part of the Soviet space program

In a small town near Chicago in 1953, twelve-year-old Tommy faces escalating problems at home, among his Catholic school friends, and with the threat of a communist living nearby, but taking over his hospitalized sister's paper route introduces him to neighbors who he comes to rely on for help.

Twelve-year-old orphan Arcady copes with his difficult life in a Soviet children's home by spending as much time as possible playing soccer. When Ivan Ivanych, a man who lost his wife to the Stalinist purges, takes Arcady in and offers to coach him, it transforms both of their lives in profound ways.

Marta is a young girl who saw thirty miles of barbed wire appear across her city overnight, separating Berlin into West and East -- with Marta's home on the Communist Bloc-controlled Eastern side. Then, just a month ago, Marta's brother became a victim of schiessbefehl, the standing order to fire upon anyone who dared pass into the West. With her family and nation both fractured, Marta will soon be faced with a promising -- but dangerous -- opportunity....