20th century

Twelve-year-old Marlee develops a strong friendship with Liz, the new girl in school, but when Liz suddenly stops attending school and Marlee hears a rumor that her friend is actually an African American girl passing herself off as white, the two young girls must decide whether their friendship is worth taking on integration and the dangers it could bring to their families.

Examines the link between the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., discussing how the strike, the media, politics, the civil rights movement, and the labor protests all laid the foundations for what many consider to be King's greatest speech, given just days before he was killed, and how that speech and King's death influenced the end of the strike.

When the devastation wrought by endless dust storms in 1930s Oklahoma makes orphans of Jack, his schoolmate Jane, and her brother Tony, they take the truck of a dead man and set out to find a new start.

Twelve-year-old Andrej, nine-year-old Tomas, and their baby sister Wilma flee their Romany encampment when it is attacked by Germans during World War II, and in an abandoned town they find a zoo where the animals tell their stories, helping the children understand what has become of their lives and what it means to be free.

Illustrations, photographs, and text describe the fashion trends of the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s, with information on styles, designers, manufacturing, materials, and other related topics.

After Rebecca meets a new family in her New York City apartment building and helps watch their fussy baby while they are moving in, she becomes convinced that they have been victimized by the kidnappers that have been operating in their neighborhood.

When eleven-year-old Theodosia and her cat, Isis, travel to Egypt to return the Orb of Ra and the Emerald Tablet, she hopes to learn more about her origins but finds, instead, the Serpents of Chaos and a precious treasure that suddenly appears and disappears.

In 1936, three children meet at the Mercy Home for Negro Orphans in New York State, and while not all three are orphans, they are all dealing with grief and loss which together, along with the help of a sympathetic staff member and the boxing matches of Joe Louis, they manage to overcome. Includes author's notes.

Fifteen-year-old Noah Garrett, sent to live with his uncle in Camp Hale, Colorado, following the death of his parents in 1944, finds himself struggling between his upbringing as a pacifist, and life on a military base in the middle of World War II.

During World War II, eleven-year-old Felicity is sent from London to Bottlebay, Maine, to live with her grandmother, aunt, uncle, and a reclusive boy who helps her decode mysterious letters that contain the truth about her missing parents.