In the Russian shtetl where she and her family live, Hannah is given a diary for her tenth birthday, and in it she records the dramatic story of her journey to America.
After immigrating from Sweden to join relatives in an American prairie community, Kirsten endures the ordeal of a strange school through a secret friendship with an Indian girl.
Annie Moore cares for her two younger brothers on board the ship sailing from Ireland to America where she becomes the first immigrant processed through Ellis Island, January 1, 1892, her fifteenth birthday.
