The novelist discusses her childhood in Cocoa, Florida in the late 1960s and early 1970s when America was riding the Space Race's tide of optimism, but the author's family found life on Earth often overwhelming.
Initially delighted when she receives an invitation to wealthy and elegant Lily Pomeray's house party, Meg is mortified to learn that she has not been invited as a guest but rather to help make the costumes for a masquerade.
As the family prepares for Christmas, Beth befriends a beautiful but sickly pony that strays into the March's yard and tries to keep it from being taken to Boston to be sold as a "useless beast.".
Amy finds herself in a quandary when, after two of her paintings are accepted for the Christmas festival artist contest, she discovers that one of her entries is actually a work done by Marmee.
When her father loses his job, eleven-year-old Quinnella and her family move from the security of a company mining town to an uncertain future in rural isolation.
