Held back for a year in second grade, Richard can't seem to help getting into trouble, until he gets really interested in reading and helps his class in a special way.
Hollis Woods is the place where a baby was abondoned. Is the baby's name. Is now a twelve-year-old girl who's been in so many foster homes she can hardly remember them all. Hollis Woods is a mountain of trouble. She runs away even from the Regans, the one family who offers her a home.
Living with her aunt and dog years after her mother left and she stopped speaking, Judith communicates through gestures and drawing cartoons while tackling the challenges of a new school and wondering if she should seek out her mother.
Three city siblings, now living on a farm during the Great Depression, must survive on their own when their father takes a construction job miles away.
