What's the line that separates childhood from the "real world"? And what happens when the "real world" is nothing you imagined it would be? Six award-winning authors --- M. T. Anderson, K. L. Going, Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, An Na and Jacqueline Woodson --- tackle the subject of the "real world" in this collection of pieces about graduation, suicide, pregnancy, death, pain, love and loss.