The girl was really getting the hang of the whole childhood thing. Oh, sure, the move to San Francisco had rocked her world for a while (as chronicled in 2015’s Inside Out). But she’d settled in just fine (eventually). She was excelling in school. She was tearing up the ice. She had a couple of fantastic friends, Grace and Bree. What more could a girl want?

Yep, all of Riley’s emotions would agree that their now 13-year-old girl was turning out just great. And those emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust—rarely agree on anything.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, puberty had to come in and wreck everything.

Wreck is the operational word here, at least as far as Riley’s emotions are concerned. One minute, the puberty alarm on Riley’s emotional control bank is blaring. The next, a team of blue construction workers storms headquarters, saws and crowbars in hand, and completely decimates the control room. The workers say that it’s all to make room for the others.

And then those others start showing up.

Anxiety arrives first, all teeth and eyes and frazzled hair. Envy shows up and fawns over the control board. Embarrassment, a big galloot of an emotion, tries to hide in his hoodie. And Ennui lounges on a couch—oh so over everything—and fiddles with her phone.

No problem, right? I mean, it’s not like this is Joy’s first rodeo with meddlesome emotions. They’re all part of the team! And as long as Joy’s in control, everything will be fine. Just fine.

But when Riley goes to an important three-day hockey camp and (at Joy’s urging) goofs off with her friends, the hockey coach makes it clear that unbridled joy in this setting is not fine. It’s not fine at all. If Riley wants to be a top hockey player—perhaps even one that makes the high school team as a freshman—she’ll need to work. She’ll need to focus. There’s a time and place for joy, but this camp ain’t it.

Anxiety gently nudges Joy aside and takes the controls. If Riley hopes to succeed in this unfamiliar world, the girl could use a little anxiety. She could use a little motivational stress. Riley’s a teenager now, after all. Time to put away those childish things and grow up. Grow into an entirely different person who can cope with all of life’s present stresses and future uncertainties.

“This is not Riley!” Joy protests.

“I know!” Anxiety tells her. “It’s a better Riley!”

But is it?

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We might look to Dr. Onda, the leader of the Kaiju Defense Force, who lost his wife and daughter to those giant monsters. Now, he’ll do whatever it takes to find the hidden Kaiju island and slaughter the beasts once and for all in order to prevent that tragedy from happening to another family.

We could also think about the actions of the kaiju Gigantron. The dragon-like monster did everything in her power to protect and reclaim the egg containing her child—an egg which had been stolen by the KDF as a step in locating Kaiju island.

And we could certainly talk about Professor Sato. He’s got the power to transform into Ultraman, a giant humanoid robotic figure who defends Tokyo from the occasional kaiju attacks. Unlike the KDF, he’d rather repel the endangered and misguided beasts than turn them into sashimi. And because of his superhero status, he chose to protect his wife and son from his dangerous profession by sending them away to Los Angeles.

But if there’s anyone who needs to learn a lesson about family, it’s Kenji “Ken” Sato, Professor Sato’s son. In the two decades since he was sent away, Ken grew up to have both a professional career in baseball as well as a hefty grudge against his father for abandoning them. And just as Ken was about to take the Dodgers to the championship game, his father, weary from years of battle, asked him to come back to Japan and take up the Ultraman mantle.

Well, Ken does begrudgingly go back. By day, he plays baseball for the Yomiuri Giants. By … well, whenever there’s a kaiju attack, he repels kaiju as Ultraman.

But remember that egg Gigantron hoped to get back, prompting her attack on the KDF? Well, just after Ken watches the KDF blow Gigantron out of the sky, the egg hatches, and the tiny kaiju imprints on Ken. And, just like his father, Ken can’t bear to see the KDF kill the creature—so he vanishes with it before the KDF can secure their asset.

And so Ken begins to discover just how difficult being a father can truly be.

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Trudy Ederle knew even before her feet first hit the water that she wanted to swim. Unfortunately, taking that first dive wasn’t so easy.

Trudy had had the measles. And while she survived, it permanently damaged her hearing. Swimming—or really any prolonged exposure to water—could further irritate her ears and cause her to go completely deaf.

In addition, girls in 1914 weren’t traditionally taught to swim. In fact, when Trudy’s mother declared that Trudy and her sister, Meg, would learn to swim, their father laughed, thinking it was a joke.

Well, it wasn’t a joke. And Trudy did learn to swim—taught by her father himself, actually.

But Trudy’s journey didn’t end there. As it turned out, she was fast—faster even than some men. She was invited to compete in the 1924 Paris Olympics on the first-ever female swim team for the United States. (An effort that ended in disaster after their coach refused to let them train during the three-week voyage across the Atlantic for fear they’d be taken advantage of by the men onboard.)

Once again, Trudy was told that she shouldn’t swim anymore—that women shouldn’t swim.

But Trudy had already declared her intentions: She would swim.

And so, she set out to do what no woman (and very few men) had ever done before—what everyone told her women not only shouldn’t but couldn’t do.

She decided to swim the English Channel.

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“Every adventure has perils and pitfalls,” Helen Smallbone tells her six children and husband, David, as they huddle on the faded carpet of their “modest” new rental home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Indeed.

Adventure is one word to describe what’s happened to the Smallbone family. And a bravely charitable word at that. Others might have looked at the family’s dire surroundings and desperate situation and chosen another, arguably more honest word: nightmare.

Not long before, Helen’s entrepreneurial husband, David, had been on top of the world. The CCM market was booming in early 1990s, and the Australian Christan concert promoter seemingly could do no wrong, promoting hugely popular bands such as Stryper, for instance.

Life was good for David and Helen and their six kiddos, as they enjoyed a lavish home with a pool table in the living room and a pool to swim in out back. And now, David has the opportunity of a lifetime: overseeing and promoting Amy Grant’s forthcoming concert tour down under. Sure, it will take a lot of money. More than a million dollars, actually, to pull it off. But that figure likely pales compared to the windfall David hopes to bring in.

Helen’s not so sure. “It’s just a lot of money,” she tells her husband. “I feel like we’re putting our lives on the line.”

She continues: “And it’s not just the finances. The kids miss you. I miss you.”

“It’s a two-week tour,” David says as he loads up the contract on the fax machine. Two weeks that, David hopes, will change everything for the Smallbones.

And so they do.

When a recession decimates concert attendance, David’s on the hook for a half-million-dollar shortfall.

“Helen, I’m sorry. No one anticipated this economy. We’re going to lose everything.”

David feels he has no choice but to uproot his family and move to the epicenter of the Christian music industry: Nashville.

Nothing—not one single thing—goes as planned. But in the end, the Smallbone family bands together to trust God, to love one another and to cling to hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s an adventure unfolding that’s bigger than they could have dreamed.

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Garfield thinks his life is pretty good. He was adopted off the street by Jon when he was just a kitten. Shortly after that, Jon also took in Odie, Garfield’s ever-loyal canine sidekick. And the trio has been living in suburban bliss ever since.

But then, on a dark and stormy night, Garfield and Odie are kidnapped. They’re used as bait by a street cat named Jinx to lure Garfield’s wayward dad, Vic, out of hiding.

Turns out that before Garfield came into the picture, Vic and Jinx used to run in the same crew—before Vic abandoned Jinx during a heist, allowing her to get sent to the pound.

Jinx says she doesn’t want revenge, just compensation—one quart of milk for every day she was stuck behind bars. And she’s giving Vic 72 hours to make good … or else.

Garfield doesn’t want anything to do with Vic. As far as he’s concerned, the guy abandoned him, only to show up years later and pull him into a life of crime.

Unfortunately, Jinx’s threat extends to Garfield and Odie as well. So the father and son will have to put aside their differences and learn to work together … or else.

Man, this sure is starting to feel like a Monday.

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Twelve-year-old Bea is having a tough go of things. You see, she lost her mom when she was little, and now her dad is sick, too. And he has to have an operation at the same New York City hospital that Bea’s mom was in.

It’s good that Bea’s grandmother lives nearby, so Bea can stay with her. But the tween is finding life difficult right now.

Don’t get me wrong, Dad is still playful and full of jokes, like usual. He’s trying to keep things light and help Bea find fun in life’s tricky moments. But Bea can’t help but stop and tell him, “Sometimes, life doesn’t have to be fun.”

Dad agrees, with an assuring smile and a warm hug. He tells her to go on out and “explore her own story” while she’s here. Figure out how everything fits. But he tells her … to have a little fun, too.

Then something unexpected happens.

After returning to her grandmother’s apartment, Bea spots an odd little figure fliting in and around the building’s shadows. At first, she thinks it’s a young girl. But when getting closer, she realizes this person looks like a 1930s cartoon version of an anthropomorphized butterfly.

Hmmm. How very strange.

Bea secretly follows the creature back to the apartment of a man named Cal. And after forcing him to talk to her, Bea finds out that the amazing-looking character, called Blossom, is none other than an “IF”: an Imaginary Friend.

You see, imaginary friends are often left behind, Cal tells the girl. They help their young human pals through tough times, but then the kids tend to forget all about them once they grow up.

Cal has the ability to see all the left behind imaginary friends in the world. Just as Bea apparently can. And after Cal shows Bea to a retirement home full of bizarre and wonderful IFs, she is ready to lend a hand.

Bea determines to spend her time at grandmother’s helping Cal find new homes for the lonely IFs. And maybe they’ll reconnect some IFs with their now grown-up kids, too.

What Bea doesn’t realize, however, is that there might be a big part of her own story that she’s about to connect with as well.

The post IF appeared first on Plugged In.

But as Thelma, Otis and Reggie step out to perform for the Sparklepalooza talent search, they don’t even get a note out before one judge tells them to move along.

“Look, babe, you just don’t have ‘it,’” the judge says.

She can tell just by appearance that the Rusty Buckets would never make it to stardom. Thelma’s a “forgettable farm pony.” Otis is a donkey; and Reggie, a llama. None of them have the “look” needed to achieve their dreams. So the judges don’t even bother listening to the band play.

It hits Thelma pretty hard. She mopes around the farmstead, imagining just how different her life could’ve been had she been born some fantastical creature—like a unicorn. She sticks a carrot on her forehead to roleplay the dream.

And that’s when a careless truck driver careens down the nearby road, spilling his hyper-specific cargo of pink paint and glitter all over Thelma as he passes. And when Thelma looks at her reflection in a puddle, she’s shocked at just how closely she resembles …

“I’m a unicorn! It’ll be like the old me never existed!”

People take notice, too. After all, most people know unicorns aren’t real. A crowd gathers to ask all the unicorn questions they can think of. And when asked if she can do anything magical, Thelma decides to sing.

But this time, people listen. They cheer. They ask for her autograph. They spread her image across social media and cable news. In less than a day, Thelma has a massive following.

Otis protests. “You’re just gonna let people think you’re a real unicorn now?”

If the unicorn façade is the only way Thelma and her band can get famous, then, yes, yes she will.

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The word says everything and nothing, a word both universal and unique. A simple word, four letters long, and yet it describes a place, a time, a feeling that can transcend language itself.

It’s 1992, and for Malik Johnson, home is Cabrini Green, a notorious housing project on Chicago’s South Side. The boy lives with three women: mother Dolores, grandmother Anita, and annoying little sister Diana. Family pictures are fixed to the whitewashed, concrete-block walls. The faucet drips and drips and drips. Grandma’s orange-yellow curtains hang over the window, billowing like honeyed sunshine.

For as long as Malik can remember, he and Eric have been best friends. They walk to school together. They stare at cracks in the ceiling and imagine they’re stars. Sometimes, they drag an abandoned mattress down to the playground, throw it on top of other abandoned mattresses and take turns jumping. Malik jumps higher than anyone, and he’ll say so.

But as high as he can jump, he can’t leap above the clouds above and around and inside Cabrini Green—the storms pulling at its cinderblocks, tearing at its people.

On Oct. 13, 1992, 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was walking to school with his mother when he was shot and killed. A killer had been aiming for a rival gang member, and the boy got in the way.

The murder was nothing new. Cabrini Green is home to families, yes—but to drug dealers and gang members, too. Guns are everywhere. Death is common. But a 7-year-old boy? The wider world takes notice and demands action. Police start raiding apartments, tearing through homespun treasures in their search for guns and drugs. And Anita feels the sobering, terrifying truth: It’s not safe.

For generations, the word home has come with those three words, too. It’s not safe. Those three words pushed Anita and her late husband out of Tupelo, Mississippi, and into Chicago decades ago. Back then, Cabrini Green felt different—where everyone knew everyone, where its parks and squares felt like one huge front porch. It felt like home should feel.

But where can the family go now? Options are so limited, if they exist at all. And for Malik? Cabrini Green is all he’s ever known. Despite its dangers and drugs and dripping faucets, it is home.

Here he laughs. Here he jumps. Here … he flies.

The post We Grown Now appeared first on Plugged In.

J.B. only catches a glimpse of the boys responsible before they run out of sight. And what’s more, the trip itself was for nothing: The club denies J.B.’s request, claiming that its white members might not be comfortable playing golf alongside a Hispanic man.

It’s a pretty bad day for J.B. But there’s always tomorrow, where he’s introduced as the new superintendent over San Felipe School District—the very same school district where the five boys responsible for smashing his car window go tp high school. And soon, those five Hispanic boys are sitting in the principal’s office, wondering how they’re going to be punished.

Turns out, it hadn’t been an accident. The boys are caddies at the all-white Del Rio’s golf course, and they’ve constructed a crude course for their own enjoyment. The group’s best player, Joe, had intentionally targeted J.B.’s moving car to win a bet. And though J.B. knows he should be mad, as an avid golfer himself, he can’t help but be impressed with the shot.

“How would you boys like to be the first members of the San Felipe High School golf team?” J.B. asks.

At first, they laugh at his offer. But then J.B. reminds them of Del Rio: How the club discriminates against Hispanic people; how the high school state championships are always played on the Del Rio course; how this could be their chance to finally prove that they’re just as good as the people who look down on them.

And well…suddenly the offer starts to sound a lot more appealing.

The post The Long Game appeared first on Plugged In.

Po still doesn’t look the part of a Kung Fu master. But his famed exploits brooch no argument: This panda can tanga. (Er, tangle.)

Po has beaten the mighty leopard Tai Lung. He bested the dastardly peacock Lord Shen. He walloped the nefarious yak General Kai and overcame his legion of Jade Zombies.

And now, just when he’s getting the hang of this whole Dragon Warrior thing, Master Shifu wants Po to give the whole gig up. Pass the torch. Become a mentor … like Master Shifu himself. Ensure the Valley of Peace is peaceful for a new generation.

Boooooring.

Yeah, Po’s not quite ready to step down just yet, thank you very much. This panda’s still got plenty of punch in his paws, kick in his caboodle.

But Shifu insists. So Po dutifully holds tryouts for the next Dragon Warrior. The applicants are impressive. And once the competition is over, Po chooses … himself! For just a while longer. Because the choice was just so hard, y’know?

Shifu once again grits his teeth and struggles to find a bit of inner peace—a peace that Po has, through three movies, done his best to trample into inner pieces. But perhaps in the back of his mind, Shifu hears his own mentor, Oogway, say, “There are no accidents.” Perhaps this delay in succession is for a reason.

Shortly thereafter, a possible “reason” bounces into the revered Hall of Heroes, home to the relics of the great warriors of yore. The interloper is a fox named Zhen, and she’s clearly after a relic or two—perhaps even the Staff of Wisdom wielded by Po himself.

Well, that won’t do. First, the staff needs to be freely given for its powers to be unlocked. Second, no thieving fox (no matter how skilled) can best the Dragon Warrior. Off to jail she goes.

But then Po hears rumors of a truly fearsome foe: the Chameleon. She’s a sorcerer of great renown, and it’s said she can transform herself to look like anybody she likes: Tai Lung. Master Shifu. Po. Anyone.

Zhen knows all about her—and she promises to lead Po right to her front door. If he lets her out of jail, that is.

Yep, good thing Po didn’t just step down just yet. This Dragon Warrior still has some dragon warrior-ing to do.

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