Smiley, Jane

In 1960s California, eighth-grader Abby Lovitt has trouble with True Blue, whose former owner was killed in a tragic accident, and Abby wonders whether the horse's skittish nature is because he is being haunted by the ghost of his former owner.

Chronicles the life of physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff, who, in the late 1930s, devised a method of using the binary number system and electrical switches to create the world's first computing device, and describes how his ideas were stolen and used by the people commonly credited with creating the computer.

Dark truths and long-suppressed emotions come to the surface in 1979 when a successful Iowa farmer decides to cut one of his daughters out of his will.