Howard, Ellen

When Alena and her family move onto new farmland out on the prairie, they must live at first in the chickenhouse because there is no time to build a house before winter; then with the warm weather comes the excitement of watching the big new house go up.

Although it was her idea to bring together her family and that of a neighboring widow woman to reap the harvest, Elvirey feels her heart "squeeze tight" at the thought of the widow and her Pap getting married.

Sexually abused by her father and fearing for the safety of her younger sister, Gilly seeks the courage to tell someone what is happening.

When she goes to live with her aunt in a small Michigan town, Mary Brooke discovers a secret room that becomes her refuge as she tries to cope with all the changes in her life brought about by her mother's death.

On the Michigan frontier, while the adults disagree over whether there are enough settlers yet to build a church, a young girl tries to recall what church is all about.

Sexually abused by her father and fearing for the safety of her younger sister, Gilly seeks the courage to tell someone what is happening.

When twelve-year-old Marguerite moves to Los Angeles in the late 1920s, she suddenly becomes shy, withdrawn, and ill at ease with other children until a girl with cerebral palsy moves in across the street.

In 1684, wearing his father's faded cap, eleven-year-old Pierre Talon joins explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier on an ill-fated expedition to seek the Mississippi River, but after the expedition falls apart Pierre, deathly ill, is taken in by Hasinai Indians. Includes historical facts.

While escaping the horrors of war-torn France, refugee children struggle to overcome the misconception that their parents are abandoning them.

When her adoptive father is hospitalized after an accident, Mellie is befriended by Geem-Wah, owner of a Chinese laundry, who holds the key to the events surrounding Mellie's birth eleven years ago.