Fearless

Being fear­less doesn’t mean you’re nev­er afraid.

Jessie Nel­son wants more than any­thing to be fearless.

Ever since the let­ters from Mom stopped com­ing, Jessie has been afraid—afraid that some­thing ter­ri­ble has hap­pened in the war where her mom is fight­ing. And afraid that her mom might nev­er come back.

Think­ing a change of scenery might be a help­ful dis­trac­tion, Jessie’s dad moves them to a small town in south­ern Min­neso­ta. There, Jessie meets two new friends: Oscar, a thought­ful boy whose broth­er just returned from fight­ing in Afghanistan; and Nicky, a goofy the­ater kid who con­stant­ly cracks jokes.

Togeth­er, the three kids stum­ble upon an old barn with the sound of ter­ri­fied dogs com­ing from inside. Want­i­ng to be brave like her mom, Jessie breaks into the barn and dis­cov­ers a pup­py mill where dozens of dogs are being neglect­ed. While she can’t save all the dogs, she can save one. She carts the dog home in a rick­ety red wheel­bar­row. But hid­ing a stolen dog from Dad and Grand­pa caus­es more prob­lems than Jessie anticipated.

As more time pass­es, keep­ing the dog hid­den becomes increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult. In the end, Jessie learns what it means to be brave and that some­times help­ing oth­ers is the best way to heal yourself.