An all-American girl with Chinese ancestors and a new immigrant from China find little in common when they meet in their fourth grade classroom, but they are both missing their best friends and soon discover other connections.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, in the summer of 1952, eight-year-old Peti gives up his room to his Hungarian relatives, including a twelve-year-old cousin who bullies him, and worries about his grandfather who cannot escape from behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1803 in Ohio, two young brothers are left to finish the log cabin and guard the land while their father goes back to Pennsylvania to fetch their mother and younger siblings.
In the wake of his father's sudden death, twelve-year-old Finn feels he is becoming invisible as his hair and skin become whiter by the day, and so he writes and illustrates a book to try to understand what is happening and to hold on to himself and his father.
An overweight, timid fifteen-year-old boy and his popular fourteen-year-old sister begin to overcome their guilt over their father's death and reconnect with each other and their emotionally-distant mother when they accompany her on a two-week speaking tour.
During a malaria epidemic in late eighteenth-century Cleveland, Ohio, ten-year-old Seth Doan surprises his family, his neighbors, and himself by having the strength to carry and grind enough corn to feed everyone.
A suggestion from her mother leads Sophie to befriend the new girl at school and an elderly, grouchy woman, and helps her overcome the feeling that she is not good at anything.
