Three Chinese youngsters, Steel Hope, his bookmate Mountain Pine, and Firecracker, a gravekeeper's daughter, vow to remain true to each other and their country, a promise that becomes impossible to keep as war, upheaval, and personal tragedies intrude.

Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend Phineas were roommates in a New Hampshire boarding school. Their friendship is marred by Finny's crippling fall, an event for which Gene is responsible and one that eventually leads to tragedy.

While living in Cape Light during the years 1904 to 1906, thirteen-year-old Amanda struggles to obey her widowed father's orders not to see the boy she loves, despite her angry resentment of her parent's courtship of a local widow.

In 1803, after being exposed as a girl and forced to leave her ship, Jacky Faber finds herself attending school in Boston, where, instead of learning to be a lady, she battles her snobbish classmates, roams the city in search of adventure, and learns to ride a horse.

In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine to question her own values.