A year in the life of two young girls growing up on the Wisconsin frontier, as they help their mother with the daily chores, enjoy their father's stories and singing, and share special occasions when they get together with relatives or neighbors.

"Oscar Starling never wanted to come to Chicago. But then Oscar finds himself not just in the heart of the big city but in the middle of a terrible fire! No one knows exactly how it began, but one thing is clear: Chicago is like a giant powder keg about to explode. An army of firemen is trying to help, but this fire is a ferocious beast that wants to devour everything in its path, including Oscar. Will Oscar survive one of the most famous and devastating...

No grizzly has ever killed a human in Glacier National Park before... until tonight. Eleven-year-old Melody Vega and her family come to Glacier every year. Mel loves it here - the beautiful landscapes and wildlife make it easy to forget her real-world troubles. But this year is different. With Mom gone, every moment in the park is a reminder of the past. Then Mel comes face-to-face with a mighty grizzly.

Pa's homestead thrives, Laura gets her first job in town, blackbirds eat the corn and oats crops, Mary goes to college, and Laura gets into trouble at school, but becomes a certified school teacher.

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Laura and her family move to Minnesota where they live in a dugout until a new house is built and face misfortunes caused by flood, blizzard, and grasshoppers.

Their magic tree house takes Jack and Annie back to the Wild West, where they experience excitement and danger and try to solve a riddle.

After an October blizzard, Laura's family moves from the claim shanty into town for the winter, a winter that an Indian has predicted will be seven months of bad weather.

Brandon is visiting his dad on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the attack comes; Reshmina is a girl in Afghanistan who has grown up in the aftermath of that attack but dreams of peace, becoming a teacher and escaping her village and the narrow role that the Taliban believes is appropriate for women--both are struggling to survive, both changed forever by the events of 9/11.

At the end of the nineteenth century, nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State where he raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.