Holt, Kimberly Willis

Ten stories trace the connections between four generations of one Louisiana family from 1939 when a young girl leaves school to help support her family to 2006 when an eighty-year-old woman embarks on a book tour.

Thirteen-year-old Isabel, a girl living on the island of Guam, and her family try to cope with the suicide of Isabel's mother.

In a small Louisiana mill town in 1940, Jolene does not want her Mama to marry the logger who is courting her, but it seems that even her most defiantly bad behavior cannot make him go away.

When she discovers the price of the coveted clubhouse, ten-year-old Piper and her fellow Gypsy Club members try to earn the money by creating a birthday-party-planning business.

Ten-year-old Piper moves yet again when her father, who is a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, gets assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, and although the move takes a bit of adjustment, she soon makes friends with the girl next door and catches up with old friends too.

Fifth-grader Piper and her sisters are thrilled about their first-ever camping trip until they learn it will be at Halloween, but other Navy families join them, including an annoying new member of the Gypsy Club.

During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.

Ten-year-old Piper moves yet again when her father, who is a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, gets assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, and although the move takes a bit of adjustment, she soon makes friends with the girl next door and catches up with old friends too.

In 1968, eleven-year-old Jaynell's life in the town of Moon, Texas, is enlivened when her eccentric Grandpap comes to live with her family.

During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.