Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chip shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow. Something inside Manny is broken: he was once a child soldier, forced to do terrible, violent...

"Bernardo Atxaga's Water over Stones follows a group of interconnected people in a small village in the Basque Country. It opens with the story of a young boy who has returned from his French boarding school to his uncle's bakery, where his family hopes he will speak again. He's been silent since an incident in which he threw a stone at a teacher for reasons unknown. With the assistance of twin brothers who take him to a river in the forest, he'll...

"The Piano weaves the passionate tale of Ada, a young mute woman desired by two men. Sold into marriage to a husband who doesn't understand her, Ada finds herself drawn to her darkly intense neighbor, stirring up vengeful jealousies and violent emotions. But in the end, only one man truly understands how to win Ada's heart, through her beloved piano"--Container.

"25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey's Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area. Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighbouring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening...

"August is a loner and prefers it that way. He only took the marriage wager to gain breathing room from his overbearing older brother. Besides, the wagon train still has a long journey before it reaches Oregon. Maybe he'll meet someone who turns his head. Felicity longs for love and family, someone to choose her above all. After a wagon train accident robs her of her voice and leaves her dependent on the kindness of strangers, she finds herself in...

A man is left alone with his daughter who can't speak due to a past trauma.

Jenny, a combative and rebellious teen is headed down a troubled path when her father decides something drastic must be done to save her. Unwilling to speak and feeling isolated in the middle of chaotic Los Angeles, her father intervenes by sending her to Thailand to live with her grandmother. Jenny feels imprisoned in the tiny, remote village until she meets Boonrod, a shunned, peasant boy whose best friend is the family water buffalo.

A snail, after traveling the world on a cord around the neck of an adventurer, comes to rest around the neck of Yago, a boy who can barely move and cannot speak, but responds to those around him by changes in his heartbeat. Ésta historia relata la amistad entre una caracola y Yago, un niño en silla de ruedas que no puede hablar y casi no puede mover.

Ivan is desperate due to lack of work. One day, looking for a job, he arrives at an island where he finds himself stuck, penniless and unable to return home, namely the squalid apartment he shares with his sick father. When help arrives, almost magically, he meets a mute young woman, Martina.