Three city siblings, now living on a farm during the Great Depression, must survive on their own when their father takes a construction job miles away.
In a series of letters to her absent father, twelve-year-old Emily Ebers deals with moving cross-country, her parents' divorce, a new friendship, and her first serious crush.
Ellie writes and doodles in a journal about her family's move to a new home and her struggle to make friends, which gets a lot easier as she leads a nonviolent protest about long lunch lines at school.
When a boy moves with his family to a bigger castle, he finds that some things about life in the new place are different, some things are the same, and he gets more comfortable the longer he is there.
Even though she is sad to leave her home in South Dakota, Rose has many new experiences as she and her parents and the Cooley family make their journey to Missouri.
On the leaving morning, a child watches for the moving men, has a cup of cocoa in the deli across the street, and leaves lip marks on the window of the apartment before departing for the new home.
