As he prepares for his first bullfight at the age of twelve, Manolo Olivar struggles with doubts about being able to fulfill his late father's bullfighting legacy.

Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he is left to take care of the family farm in Illinois during the difficult years of the Civil War. A young boy's experiences during the Civil War in the backwoods of southern Illinois. One brother joins the Union forces, the other the Confederacy, and the family is divided. Annotation. The unforgettable story of young Jethro Creighton who comes of age during the turbulent years of the Civil War....

As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.