Sixth-grader Carly's assignment to interview a reclusive, brooding classmate leads her to discover some of the events that have caused his antisocial and abusive family's negative impact on their Missouri farming community, and Carly's family in particular.
After his three best friends die in a car crash when he should have been driving, seventeen-year-old Tucker meets Charon, the Ferryman of Hades, and must decide whether to succumb to his grief or go on living.
Twelve-year-old Jens, who adores the farm where she has lived all her life, is devastated when severe financial problems may force her family to sell out and move to the city.
Thirteen-year-old Frannie learns hard lessons about prejudice and segregation when she becomes friends with a young black girl who moves into her small Oklahoma town in 1961.
As she develops a closeness with two cousins during a summer on her grandparents' farm in Illinois, fourteen-year-old Victoria emerges from the shadow of her showy younger sister and has some experiences that change her life forever.
Looking for a new beginning after her father's death, Eliza and her mother move to a backwater town in Missouri where Eliza's desperate attempts to be popular in her new school are thwarted by her growing friendship with the eccentric girl next door.
Thirteen-year-old Frannie learns hard lessons about prejudice and segregation when she becomes friends with a young black girl who moves into her small Oklahoma town in 1961.
As she develops a closeness with two cousins during a summer on her grandparents' farm in Illinois, fourteen-year-old Victoria emerges from the shadow of her showy younger sister and has some experiences that change her life forever.
