Hannibal, Missouri. It's the hometown of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Powers and literary giant Mark Twain, who established it as the birthplace of America's image of boyhood itself. Power returns to Hannibal to chronicle the horrific story of two killings, both committed by minors, and the trials that followed. Seamlessly weaving the narrative of the events in Hannibal with the national withering of the very concept of childhood, Powers exposes a fragmented adult society where children are left adrift-and isolation is often transformed into violence.