In 1941 in Kansas, as America enters World War II, fourteen-year-old William finds himself alienated from his friend Jim, a Mennonite who does not believe in fighting for any reason, as they argue about the war.
With the threat of further violence from pro-slavery border ruffians ever-present, nine-year-old Bill must run the farm, even after his father comes home to recuperate from his knife wound, and go to school.
A photoillustrated account of the matching of three white Bengal tiger cubs, whose mother stopped nursing them shortly after birth, with Isabella, a golden retriever that was nursing her own puppy at the time and proceeded to feed and care for the cubs as if they were her own.
Charlie, having returned home alone after his father decided to stay in Lawrence, Kansas to help defend the town from pro-slave ruffians, must prove himself responsible when his family is threatened by a snow storm.
While tension over slavery grows in Kansas Territory, causing the Underground Railroad to shut down, and Papa is away, hiding from a false arrest, Charlie and his family risk everything to hide a runaway slave girl in their cabin.
Charlie Keller has trouble feeling at home after his abolitionist father, wanting to cast a vote for freedom, moves his family from Massachusetts to the Kansas Territory which is on the verge of deciding whether to enter the Union as a free or a slave state.
Excerpts from diaries and letters help chronicle the events which lead to the formation of the Kansas Territory and describe how abolitionists and slaveowners tried to influence whether it would become a slave state or free.
