Hughes, Pat

Hockey has been Nick Taglio's life since he was five years old, so when a massive concussion benches him--possibly for good--everything seems to fall apart, including his schoolwork, his family relationships, his friendships, and his love life.

Ten-year-old Izzie wants to join the war like his older brothers and go into battle against the Confederate Army, but when he meets a Rebel soldier in a hospital, he begins to see things differently.

Hockey has been Nick Taglio's life since he was five years old, so when a massive concussion benches him--possibly for good--everything seems to fall apart, including his schoolwork, his family relationships, his friendships, and his love life.

On July 4th, 1777, fourteen-year-old Jake Mallory and his friends are celebrating their new nation's independence, but over the next four years Jake finds himself in increasingly adventurous circumstances as he battles British forces, barely survives captivity on a prison ship, and finally returns home to Connecticut, war-torn and weary, but hopeful for America's future.

Two fifteen-year-old boys in Missouri in 1863 find friendship and family loyalty tested by Quantrell's raiders, a Rebel guerrilla band who roamed under the black flag of "no quarter to be given by Union troops.".

In 1897, Nate Tanner, the hot-tempered twelve-year-old son of wealthy Pennsylvania mine owners, goes against his father's wishes by befriending some of the boys who work in the mines and gets caught up in a disastrous clash between mine workers and the law.