In 1914 New York City, nine-year-old Rebecca is determined to show her family that she is old enough to light the Shabbos candles and go to the movies.

After her family immigrates to America from Italy in 1903, ten-year-old Sofia is quarantined at the Ellis Island Immigration Station, where she makes a good friend but endures nightmarish conditions. Includes historical notes.

"In the second book in the Books of Beginning Trilogy, Michael and Emma must track down the Chronicle of Life, while Kate must find a way back to present day from the year 1899"--

In 1931, a boy and his father watch as the world's tallest building, the Empire State Building, is constructed, step-by-step, near their Manhattan home.

Molly Murphy - now Molly Sullivan - is a year into her marriage, expecting her first child, and confined to the life of a housewife. The most important decision Molly faces these days is whether the lace curtains need cleaning, and she's restless and irritable in the heat of a New York summer and the enforced idleness of pregnancy. So when a trip to the post office brings a letter addressed to her old detective agency asking her to locate a missing...

Finn Reardon, a thirteen-year-old Irish-American newspaper carrier who hopes to be a journalist someday, keeps a journal of his experiences living in New York City in 1899. Includes historical notes.

When her family temporarily moves into a luxury apartment building in 1904 Manhattan, eleven-year-old Samantha tries to discover whether a series of mishaps is related to a curse on the building's owner.

In 1904 Sam Clemens leads a reclusive life in New York City after the death of his wife, who was also his editor, until his cat Bambino influences him to re-join society. Includes brief notes on the life and work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was known to the world by his pen name, Mark Twain.

In 1911 New York, sixteen-year-old Essie Rosenfeld must stop taking care of her irrepressible six-year-old sister when she goes to work at the Triangle Waist Company, where she befriends a missing heiress who is in hiding from her family and who seems to understand the feelings of heartache and grief that Essie is trying desperately to escape.

In early 1900s New York, Doctor Rosalind Werner's work to champion a water delivery technology that will fight water-borne illnesses brings her into contact, and conflict, with newly appointed Comissioner of Water, Nicholas Drake.