Tired of doing chores and longing for adventure during the Great Depression, Kit meets a hobo and decides to hop a freight train.

In 1934, during the Depression, Kit's cantankerous uncle comes to live in the Cincinnati boardinghouse run by her parents, enlisting her aid in transcribing his complaining letters to the editor of the local newspaper and inspiring her to write a different kind of letter of her own.

When Elizabeth's sister, Annabelle, becomes engaged, Elizabeth and Felicity play pranks on her to tease her out of her silliness, but when their pranks backfire, Elizabeth and Felicity must find a way out of the trouble they've created.

While celebrating her brother's Bar Mitzvah on Coney Island, nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin disobeys by going off on her own, leaving her cousin Ana, a recent immigrant, alone.

In 1914 New York City, nine-year-old Rebecca is determined to show her family that she is old enough to light the Shabbos candles and go to the movies.

Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like Tía Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.

When Kaya and her family join with other Nez Percé and Salish Indians to fish for the red salmon, she and her older sister hope to be reunited with their younger sister, who had been kidnapped some time before. Includes historical notes on the summer activities of the Nez Percé Indians.

Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tía Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.

In 1974 at her new San Francisco school, nine-year-old Julie does not want to tell her class about her parents' divorce, or to tell her sister about messing up her school assignment, but when she breaks her finger playing basketball and her whole family rallies around her, she realizes the importance of telling the truth.

It's 1976 and the entire country is celebrating America's 200th birthday. Julie joins her cousins on a pioneer-style wagon train in honor of the Bicentennial. The journey is filled with adventures, challenges, and self-discovery as Julie faces her fears to make an important contribution to her country's birthday. The "Looking Back" section provides additional information about Bicentennial celebrations in the United States.--From publisher's description....