While her father is away fighting in World War II, Molly finds her life full of change as she eats terrible vegetables from the victory garden and plans revenge on her brother for ruining her Halloween.

Samantha is determined to help nine-year-old Nellie, attending school for the first time, with her school work and learns a great deal herself about what it is like to be a poor child and work in a factory.

Nine-year-old Josefina, the youngest of four sisters living in New Mexico in 1824, tries to help run the household after her mother dies.

In 1932, Kit faces a very different Christmas because of her family's financial problems and allows her pride to estrange her from her best friend.

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

Julie is in school detention for passing a note to Joy, a deaf student who has trouble understanding what their teacher is saying. Indignant, Julie decides to run for student body president so she can make changes to the detention system. But the other students are put off by Joy, her choice for vice president, and Julie worries that she'll have little chance of winning if she partners with someone who seems so different. With persistence and creative...

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....

While Rebecca Rubin helps her building's ailing superintendent take care of his homing pigeons, she puzzles over what to do with the Christmas centerpiece her teacher insisted she make but which has no place in her Jewish home.

Rebecca Rubin worries that her tenth birthday will be ruined because it falls during Passover, but her mother's cousin Max, an actor, takes her with him to a movie studio, where she makes friends with an actress and a set carpenter.

Ten-year-old Lanie's wildflower garden is thriving and attracting butterflies to her Cambridge, Massachusetts, backyard, but a neighbor not only objects to her growing "weeds," she also uses harmful chemicals on her own plants.