Valerie Tripp

In 1929 Kit finds that she has hard lessons to learn about the Depression, both at home where she is helping her mother run a boarding house while her father looks for a new job, and at school, where a fight spoils the preparations for the Thanksgiving pageant.

Molly's excitement at performing in a big show is exceeded only by the announcement that her father is returning home from the war.

Tired of doing chores and longing for adventure during the Great Depression, Kit meets a hobo and decides to hop on a freight train.

Christmas in Williamsburg means a dancing party at the Governor's Palace for Felicity, but her mother becomes very ill and cannot finish the special blue gown.

In 1934, during the Depression, Kit's cantankerous uncles comes to live in the Cincinnati boardinghouse run by her parents, enlisting her aid in transcribing his complaining letters to the editor of the local newspaper, and inspiring her to write a different kind of letter of her own.

When Squirrel collects all the nuts, the other animals think her greedy until they discover she needed them for a Thanksgiving surprise.

During World War II, nine-year-old Molly goes to school and with her friends tries to aid the war effort.

When her father's business closes because of the Great Depression forcing Kit to make changes in her life, the nine-year-old responds with resourcefulness.

A ten-year-old girl discovers the modern delights of turn-of-the-century New York City when she travels there with her grandmother to visit relatives.

Shortly before the Revolutionary War, nine-year-old Felicity, who lives in Williamsburg, is torn between supporting the tariff-induced tea boycott and saving her friendship with Elizabeth, a young loyalist from England.