In 1927, as Christmas approaches, fifteen-year-old Joan Lee hopes to get her parents' permission to celebrate the holiday, one of the problems of belonging to the only Chinese American family in her small West Virginia community.

Collects two stories from the "Lux" series following Katy and Daemon's search for the truth about the secret organization that tortures and tests hybrids.

Lani must convince her parents not to have her transferred from Chestnut Hill to another school.

Fifteen-year-old Paul Shackleford experiences an eye-opening and transformative summer living and working on the central Virginia farm belonging to a distant relative, where everyone seems to be haunted by the death of a much-loved and admired farmhand the year before.

During a visit to her grandfather's plantation in Virginia during the summer of 1775, Felicity's loyalty is torn between her father and Ben, her father's apprentice who needs her help as he runs away to join George Washington's army of Patriots.

Jimmy Cannon tells about his life in the 1940s as the son of a West Virginia railroad man, loving the trains and expecting one day to work on the railroad like his father and brothers.

After serving Martha Washington for twenty years, Oney realizes that she will never be a part of General Washington's family at Mount Vernon. She must make a choice: does she stay where she is, comfortable with the family that she has known since she was born, or does she take liberty into her own hands and, like her father, become one of the Gone?

Sixteen-year-old Willa, living in a Depression-era West Virginia mining town, works hard to help her family, experiences love and friendship, and finds an outlet for her writing when her family becomes part of the Arthurdale, West Virginia, community supported by Eleanor Roosevelt.

As Esme introduces her stuffed animal collection that is alphabetically arranged from Alvin the aardvark to Zelda the zebra she also relates her family's military life and her father's deployment.