Vannie tries to make the best of things when she and her dog Muffy are left with her cranky great-aunt on an old farm in Ohio while Vannie's parents go to California to look for work.
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.
When Betsy Ward's family moves to Ohio from Connecticut in 1803, she brings along a sockful of coins to buy sheep so that she can gather wool, spin cloth, and make clothes to keep her children warm.
After traveling from Connecticut to Ohio in 1800 to start a new life in the settlement of Aurora, the Sheldons find that they are the first family to arrive there and realize that they will be starting a new community by themselves.
Twin brothers Jay and Ray Grayson learn about friendship, honesty, and themselves after taking advantage of a clerical oversight in which their new school thinks there is only one Grayson boy.
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.
