Are you working on the Great American Novel (or great global one)?  If so, can you summarize the plot in a sentence or two?  If not, you may lose your way somewhere along the line (says the guy who loses his way most of the time).  Having a detailed outline is great, but can you boil it down?  Which brings me to Name That Synopsis.  Can you name some of the following titles by their boiled-down synopsis?  (What’s the plural of synopsis?)

1. A sixteen year old boy’s first year at a private school includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

2. As further evidence of his family’s bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, a boy is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

3. Main character is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

4. The life and times of a boy who would not grow up.

5. A boy helps a runaway slave and has many adventures as they sail down the Mississippi.

6. Twelve year old boy moves to a prison island and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.

7. A grumpy individual tries to stop Christmas from coming to a nearby town.

8. A husband and wife (both dogs) attempt to rescue their fifteen puppies from the clutches of an evil woman.