When sixteen-year-old Lark is murdered, she, her childhood best friend Eva, and a girl she used to babysit, Nyetta, find themselves facing hard truths about their lives and seeking a way to move on.

Despite her poor background and ferocious competition from more privileged girls, fourteen-year-old Sid pursues her dream of becoming a catch rider--a show rider who can ride anything--with help from her Uncle Wayne.

Told in two voices, Jules, whose father is restoring an abandoned house, and a girl who lived there a century before begin to communicate and slowly, the girl's tragic story is revealed.--

Presents a historical novel based on true accounts of the Civil War. In 1861, the state of Virginia secedes from the Union, but a Union outpost at Fort Monroe offers refuge to escaping slaves. Twelve-year-old Callie Wilcomb follows her family there, starts studying with Mrs. Mary Peake, a teacher at the fort, and learns that she can have a say over her future, a freedom she has never known.

In 1963, Pearl, an eleven-year-old black girl in Fairfax, Virginia, learns about the real nature of friendship from the popular but untrustworthy Lenore, and Artemesia, a poor girl who moves into the neighborhood for a brief time.