Looking for a new beginning after her father's death, Eliza and her mother move to a backwater town in Missouri where Eliza's desperate attempts to be popular in her new school are thwarted by her growing friendship with the eccentric girl next door.

"As a New York-to-Missouri transplant in 1943, ten-year-old Susan Marcus discovers a world of prejudice right in her own backyard and makes a small but courageous stand toward equality"--

During the Depression, in the Ozarks of Missouri, thirteen-year-old Thad has adventures selling moonshine and fishing with a rich visitor.

"Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the 20th century the sisters' parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage...