Seven-year-old Billy Miller starts second grade with a bump on his head and a lot of worries, but by the end of the year he has developed good relationships with his teacher, his little sister, and his parents and learned many important lessons.

In Wisconsin, ten-year-old Christa and eleven-year-old Alex team up to search for the lost treasure of Al Capone near where Alex has just moved into his grandfather's house and Christa is spending what may be her family's last summer in their cabin.

A young pioneer girl and her family attend a wintertime party at her grandparents' house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

When Esther's family moves to a farm during the Great Depression, she soon learns that there are things much more important than that her superstitious mother rarely shows her any affection.

In 1948, Nikko Spirakis, twelve, loves baseball but must get past his hard-working immigrant parents--and the rhino in the outfield--to become a batboy for the local minor league team.

Beware! At first, Charli is excited about the Crandall family's newest endeavor-fixing up the town's old mansion and turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. She even volunteers to help. Then strange things begin to happen. Charli hears someone singing-but no one is there. She sees the shadow of a rocking cradle-but there is no cradle. And then she hears a baby crying, and crying. . . . Something terrible happened in the old house many years ago. And...

In Wisconsin, fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family's apple orchard, until her mother begins treatment for breast cancer and her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.