Grounded for the summer by her sometimes-evil stepmother, seventeen-year-old vegan feminist Ellen Lopez-Rourke gets permission to join a Quidditch team, where she makes new, if nerdy, friends.

Twelve-year-old Sadie promises that she will always be Wilma's best friend when their families leaves drought-stricken Missouri in 1933, but once in Texas, Sadie learns that she must try to make a new home--and new friends, too.

Calpurnia and her grandfather rescue a barn owl from the river and, with the help of Dr. Pritzker, dead mice, and some detective work, nurse it back to health.

France sends the Merci Train to the United States to thank America for helping France during and after WWII, and one of the train stops will be the small town of Gladiola, Texas, where ten-year-old Glory Bea hopes for the greatest miracle--that her missing-in-action father will be on the train.