In 1933, when twelve-year-old Hallie Turner and her brothers, Tom and Benny, take to the road seeking whatever work they can get, they find kindness in small-town Kansas.

A black family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.

"[A]n epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America's most defining eras--the Great Depression. Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with...

Marshall tries to figure out how many beans are in a jar to win his mother a new sewing machine.

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.

Josh is in a quandry. Matilda is vivacious and lovely; Mary is sweet and supportive. And they won't remain single for very long. But how is he to go about courting someone he sees in his kitchen nearly every day? And, more importantly, whom does he truly love?

A young girl and her out-of-work father ride the rails looking for a place to call home, but with Christmas approaching and no job, Poppa leaves her in a foster home, promising to return as soon as he can.

"2 Children for sale." The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices. For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family's dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when it leads to his big break, the consequences...

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.