Although she sucks her thumb, smells bad, and loses herself in the make-believe world of the three bears' dollhouse, ten-year-old Fran knows how to take care of her baby sister better than anybody else.
The daughter of a Russian immigrant family, newly arrived in Manhattan in 1908, has conflicting feelings about her mother's increasingly radical union involvement.
Laura has always looked out for her little sister Amy. Now Laura has a job as a hall monitor and she has to treat her sister like all the other kids, doesn't she? That's not what her parents think.
A twelve-year-old Jewish boy struggles to maintain his friendship with his tomboy classmate, Veronica, despite the opposition of their parents and the disapproval of his other friends.
A lonely foster child struggling to change her unhappy life is weakened by the bribes of an abusive foster mother, yet strengthened by imaginary conversations with Joan of Arc.
When her twin sister begins to assert her individuality and her grandmother suddenly dies, thirteen-year-old Dezzey finds some comfort in her relationships with her grandfather and a new friend.
