"Troubadour on the Road to Gold is a true, western adventure story with lots of action and rich detail. William Lorton's spritely, detailed, and insightful journal is a delight, yet moving at the same time. He gives insight rarely found in a young man into daily trail life from the Mississippi River to southern California, by way of Salt Lake City, in the early gold rush of 1849. Additional information is added in his letters from the trail to The...

Fifth grader Penny, who doodles to cope with anxiety, worries that her best friend is drifting away.

When the town threatens to close their crumbling middle school and Greg realizes he'd have to go to a different school than his best friend, he rallies his classmates to save their school before it's shuttered for good.

In the diary account of her journey from Ireland in 1847 and of her work in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, fourteen-year-old Mary reveals a great longing for her family.

In the diary account of her life at a government-run Pennsylvania boarding school in 1880, a twelve-year-old Sioux Indian girl reveals a great need to find a way to help her people.