Clinton, Cathryn

In 1962 in South Carolina, twelve-year-old Esta is called into the ministry of Jesus and anointed with the gift of healing, but when her relatives decide to take her on a religious crusade she wonders if it is the right thing to do.

Esther Leah Ridley, a twelve-year-old girl in South Carolina in 1962, discovers she has the gift of healing and is sent out on a crusade along with her boy-crazy sister, and her favorite uncle Peter Earl, whose intense interest in the collection plate soon has Esther worrying about whether she is really answering God's call.

Eleven-year-old Malaak and her family are touched by the violence in Gaza between Jews and Palestinians when first her father disappears and then her older brother is drawn to the Islamic Jihad.

After many moves with her peripatetic mother, seventeen-year-old Jude begins to believe that she has finally found a home, friends, and some purpose in life when the grandmother she never knew has a stroke and she and her mother come to live in the same town to be near her.

Eleven-year-old Malaak and her family are touched by the violence in Gaza between Jews and Palestinians when first her father disappears and then her older brother is drawn to the Islamic Jihad.