20th century

During the Vermont flood of 1927, a girl and her grandparents share their new hilltop house with neighbors and animals.

In early twentieth-century Vermont, fifteen-year-old Emma confides in her diary both her hopes of becoming a farmer's wife one day and her frustrations with her parents' belief that she is too young to be courted by the handsome Cole Berry.

In poor, rural Georgia in 1927, twelve-year-old Carrisa and her suspicious mama take in an elderly drifter with a shiny bicycle, never expecting how profoundly his wise and patient ways will affect them.

In New York City in the 1920s, the children from Chinatown go after the children from Little Italy for throwing rocks at the beautiful kites Grandfather Chin makes, not realizing that they have a reason for doing so.

While working as a reporter during her summer vacation in 1935, Kit uncovers a mystery at the Cincinnati Zoo involving suspected break-ins at the monkey house.

Presents a descriptive list of all the things required to have a Christmas like the author's grandmother had, including farm animals, stories of Scotland, ice skating in the moonlight, and joining friends, family, and neighbors at church on Christmas Eve.

In 1934, a thirteen-year-old with a gift for numbers is offered the chance to leave her family's dairy farm to spend one term at an exclusive Philadelphia girls' school preparing for a scholarship exam.

In rural Kentucky in 1955, Serilda Collins, single mother of four lively girls, discovers that her orphaned nephew is being subjected to brutality.

In 1921, fifteen-year-old Noble Chase hates the sheriff of Wekiwa, Oklahoma, and is more than willing to cross him to help his best friend, a black man, who is injured during race riots in nearby Tulsa.

In Queens, New York, in 1969, twelve-year-old Julian Twerski writes a journal for his English teacher in which he explores his friendships and how they are effected by girls, a new student who may be as fast as Julian, and especially an incident of bullying.