After their escape from North Carolina to Philadelphia in the summer of 1864, Addy and her mother begin their new life as free people as her mother gets a paying job and Addy goes to school and learns a lesson in true friendship.

In 1825 when Josefina trusts a trader in Santa Fe with an important deal, she makes a surprising discovery about this young American who leaves town without paying her.

In 1974, after Julie's parents divorce, she moves to a new San Francisco neighborhood where the school does not have a girls' basketball team, so she fights for the right to play on the boys' team.

Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tia Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.

Still grieving over the death of her hero, and missing her stolen horse and kidnapped younger sister, Kaya tries to earn the trust of a lone and starving dog who is about to have puppies. Includes historical notes on Nez Perce children.

Addy and Harriet feud over everything, including fund-raising plans to help the families of freed slaves, but tragedy finally forces them to stop fighting and work together.

Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like Tia Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.

Describes the conditions of African Americans in the North and the South during and immediately after the Civil War.

Caroline's father has just returned when they receive frightening news--British warships are sailing to attack Sackets Harbor. Every grown man, including Papa, has been called to defend the village. Mama and Caroline are left alone to guard Abbott's Shipyard as the battlefront draws ever closer. Caroline knows she must be brave to keep Papa's shipyard safe. But when the battle seems lost, Mama gives her a terrible order: burn the shipyard to the ground....

In 1974 at her new San Francisco school, nine-year-old Julie does not want to tell her class about her parents' divorce, or to tell her sister about messing up her school assignment, but when she breaks her finger playing basketball and her whole family rallies around her, she realizes the importance of telling the truth.