In 1932, during the Depression in Ohio, thirteen-year-old Rudy, determined to help his family weather the hard times, hops a train going west to California and experiences the hobo life.

Ten-year-old Lucy, an orphan who wants a little sister more than anything, finds a very special one in the less than perfect family which she joins.

Throughout the twentieth century, Miss Kanagawa, one of fifty-eight dolls made to serve as ambassadors from Japan to the United States, travels the country learning to love while changing the lives of those who need her.

An eighteen-year-old Marine records in his journal his experiences in Vietnam during the siege of Khe Sanh, 1967-1968. Includes a history of Vietnam, war timeline, glossary, and related military information.

The story of a Bulgarian peasant boy who wanted to be a sculpter. A Bulgarian peasant boy must convince his mother that he is destined to be a sculptor, not a farmer.

"As a boy, Henry Friston dreamed of traveling the world. He thought he was signing up for a lifetime of adventure when he joined the Royal Navy. But when World War I begins, it launches the world, and Henry, into turmoil. While facing enemy fire at Gallipoli, Henry discovers the strength he needs to survive in an unexpected source: a tortoise. And so begins the friendship of a lifetime. Based on true events, and with charming illustrations, this story...

Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

Liberated for a year from her parents' restrictions, ten-year-old Lucinda discovers true freedom in the care of her temporary guardians as she roller skates around the streets of turn-of-the-century New York.

Teenage Simone's diaries for 1917 and 1918 reveal her experiences as a carefree member of New York society, then as a "Hello girl," a volunteer switchboard operator for the Army Signal Corps in France.

In 1848, while on a wagon train headed for Oregon, fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is kidnapped by Pawnee Indians and then falls in with a one-armed trapper who teaches him how to live in the wild.