Eleven-year-old Gave enlists in the Union Army in Pennsylvania along with his older brother Davy and, as a bugler, does his best to protect Davy during the Battle of Gettysburg.

In 1777 Philadelphia, young Maddy Rose spies for General Washington's army by using an unusual code to communicate with her soldier brother.

On August 10, 1813, with the British navy advancing up Chesapeake Bay to destroy the shipyards in St. Michaels, Maryland, Henry Middle thinks of a way to save his home town from the British.

After a day of picking cotton in late 1860, Ella May, a young slave, joins her friends Bobby and Sue at their second job of listening outside the windows of their master's house for useful information.

As the Apollo 11 mission draws to a close there is a crisis at the tracking station on Guam: the antenna that will track the spacecraft during reentry, and allow mission control to communicate with the astronauts is stuck--and ten-year-old Marty is the only one small enough to reach in and grease the ball bearings that allow the antenna to move.

Traveling west, Rose meets Minnow, a girl from a Native American village along the banks of a river.

After eluding capture by the Nazis, seven-year-old Rebekkah and her mother are brought from Italy to the United States to begin a new life.

In 1933, facing the hardships of the Great Depression, Ruth learns to follow her mother's example and count her lucky stars when she turns her disappointment over not being able to attend fourth grade into a blessing for her younger sister.