When twelve-year-old Frederick "Red" Porter's father dies in 1972, his mother wants to sell their automobile repair shop and move her two sons back to Ohio, but Red's desperate to stop the sale even if it means unearthing some dark family secrets in a Virginia rife with racial tensions.

In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases; one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town's daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town's wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset...

With her mama recently dead and her pa sight unseen since birth, Amelia is suddenly in charge of her younger brother and sister-- and the family gas station. To keep a competitor at bay and keep her family out of foster care, Melia must come up with a father-- fast. When a hobo rolls out of a passing truck, Melia grabs opportunity by its beard. Can she convince the town that Hiram is her long lost father, and keep the family together until she comes...

In 1955 Hadley, Virginia, twelve-year-old Dawnie Rae Johnson, a tomboy who excels at baseball and at her studies, becomes the first African American student to attend the all-white Prettyman Coburn school, turning her world upside down. Includes historical notes about the period.

Eleven-year-old April is delighted when President and Mrs. Hoover build a school near her Madison County, Virginia, home but her family's poverty, grief over the accidental death of her brother, and other problems may mean that April can never learn to read from the wonderful teacher, Miss Vest.