Ten-year-old Darby Bannister has difficulty adjusting to a new environment when she moves with her family from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta in the middle of World War II.
Twelve-year-old John-too is dismayed when his grandmother, who has come to live with his family, begins to experience increasing incidents of confusion and memory loss.
Passionate about karate, fourteen-year-old Troy tries to convince his disapproving parents about the true nature of the art and its importance in his life.
A rift develops in the closeness shared by eleven-year-old Jonathon and his best friends when a new boy moves onto the street and insists on pushing himself into Jonathon's life.
As she struggles to cope with a difficult mother and find her place in the world, young Nealy Compton finds solace in the relative solitude and safety beneath her neighbor's porch.
