In 1923, twelve-year-old Hank and his older brother Peter travel on the Orphan Train from New York to Nebraska where they find a miserable existence living on a farm with a disagreeable and abusive couple whose only use for the brothers is as unpaid help.
In 1923, nine-year-old Hattie rides the Orphan Train from New York to Nebraska where she must adjust to a strange new life with a farmer and his wife, who is despondent over the loss of her two children.
Hank, having come west on an orphan train to live with a disagreeable couple on a farm in Nebraska, tries to endure his miserable existence and thinks about running away, as his older brother did.
In 1943, twelve-year-old Celie's father brings home a rhesus monkey that helps Celie deal with all the difficulties that the war has brought into her life in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Nine-year-old Meggie resents spending time with a strange, smelly old man who calls her mother whenever he needs a ride, but when Christmas finds him in the hospital she knows what she must do.
