Piper is sad about leaving her home and friends behind when her father, a Navy aircraft mechanic, is transferred yet again, but with help from her often-annoying sisters and a surprise from their parents, she finds happiness in their new home in Pensacola, Florida.
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.
While her father, a Navy Chief, is on ship duty for six months, nine-year-old Piper stays busy with new neighbors, Christmas at a spaceship beach house, a trip to New Orleans, and especially the upcoming Gypsy Club pet show.
Benny the baker sees no need for a dog in his life, but while his most faithful customer and the children who visit his bakery for "Free cookie day" soon realize he has been adopted by a stray, it takes a heroic deed to convince Benny that the dog belongs with him.
Growing up in Saitter, Louisiana, in the 1950s, twelve-year-old Tiger Ann struggles with her feelings about her stern, but loving grandmother, her mentally slow parents, and her good friend and neighbor, Jesse.
After bidding goodbye to her friends Michael and Nicole, who are moving away, Piper and her sisters spend winter break with their two sets of grandparents in Piney Woods, Louisiana, where Piper learns that the best adventures are the unexpected ones.
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.
