Put your hand on your heart. Feel it beating?

Heartbeat is the story of twelve-year-old Annie, who loves to run for the sheer pleasure of running. It's when she feels the most free in a year when everything seems to be shifting. Her mother is pregnant, her grandfather is aging, and her best friend, Max, is increasingly moody. Everything is changing, just like the apple that Annie has been assigned to draw one hundred times.

The story is told in free verse, exploring the friendship between Annie and Max, and Annie's changing relationships with her mother and grandfather. Annie is attempting to understand not only herself and her place in her family, but also to understand those around her. At the same time, she is attempting to understand larger, more complex questions: how we become who we are, and to what degree we should conform; how we are unique and yet how we are all alike.