Cordelia learns a lesson about the rights and abilities of girls and women when she spends time taking care of Jules, a horse belonging to nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Nine-year-old Hannah, a Quaker living in Philadelphia just before the Civil War, longs to have some fashionable dresses like other girls but comes to appreciate her heritage and its plain dressing when her family saves the life of a runaway slave.
In the early twentieth century, a young sister and brother secretly train one of their horses for trick riding but fear it was all for naught when their father decides to sell the horse.
While Galileo sleeps, his young daughter Virginia, later known as Maria Celeste, explores his study and discovers some of the tools he uses in his scientific experiments.
The summer of 1961 brings change to eleven-year-old Celli and her town of Mystic, Georgia, when her beloved Sophie becomes involved in the Civil Rights Movement and Celli learns a secret about the father who left her and her family long ago.
In 1933, when her father's foot injury makes it impossible for him to do farm work for a while, thirteen-year-old Agnes steps in, proving herself and revealing her understanding of him.
In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme.
Now a full member of the "Aurora" crew, Davy Shea assists his uncle, Captain Hunter, in the search for Jack Steele as the pirate king's plundering grows ever more intense.
