When twelve-year-old Ellie and her family lose livelihood and move to a mountain cabin in 1934, she quickly learns to be an outdoors woman and, when needed, a healer.

In 1933, when twelve-year-old Hallie Turner and her brothers, Tom and Benny, take to the road seeking whatever work they can get, they find kindness in small-town Kansas.

As they plant trees and do other environmental projects for the Civilian Conservation Corps, Russian immigrants Pavel and Anatoly are happy to find employment during the Great Depression, but when other workers accuse them of not being "real Americans," Pavel and Anatoly learn the words to the Star Spangled Banner, newly designated by Congress as the national anthem.

"Joseph McCoy plans a secret project to help save an all-black Civilian Conservation Corps camp from being forced out of town in 1935 Elsinore, California"--

"Contains three stories focusing on America's Great Depression. In The Lucky Star a girl teaches her sister and other children to read after their school is closed. In Rudy Rides the Rails a boy embarks on a hobo's journey across the country. In Junk Man's Daughter, an immigrant family struggles financially until they start a new business"--

In 1932, during the Depression in Ohio, thirteen-year-old Rudy, determined to help his family weather the hard times, hops a train going west to California and experiences the hobo life.

In the summer of 1935, twelve-year-old Kit Kittredge's dog Grace mysteriously vanishes and Kit tries to figure out who took her and why. Includes information about pets and dog shows during the Great Depression.

Durante la Gran Depresión, Bud, un niño que tiene 10 años, se escapa de su familia adoptiva y va en búsqueda de su padre. Bud cree que su padre es un gran músico. Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

In 1934, eleven-year-old Terpsichore's father signs up for President Roosevelt's Palmer Colony project, uprooting the family from Wisconsin to become pioneers in Alaska, where Terpsichore refuses to let rough conditions and first impressions get in the way of her grand adventure.

In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.