Deborah Hopkinson

As a young girl, budding astronomer Maria Mitchell dreams of searching the night sky and some day finding a new comet.

"Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth's experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism erupted into Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and unleashed a wave of violence and forced arrests. Days later, desperate volunteers sprang into action to organize...

Davey has been saving his money ever since his mother died so that he can leave the Seattle boardinghouse where he lives and works and go find his Uncle Walt in Alaska, and he becomes even more determined when gold is discovered in the Klondike and his stash of money disappears.

On his first morning at sea, ship's cat Trim looks for ways to help out, and makes a new friend along the way.

In 1582 thirteen-year-old Emilia Bassano is a lute player and aspiring playwright who stumbles on a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth, and is recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham to go to the castle where Mary Queen of Scots is being held and discover who is responsible for the plot.

Describes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and its aftermath.

Depicts Victorian-era artist, writer, and animal lover Beatrix, who is dismayed when a neighbor's guinea pig in her charge passes away unexpectedly.

"Before Marie Curie was the first woman in France to earn the highest degree in physics, before she discovered two new radioactive elements, and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (and then the first person to win two!)-- she was a little girl named Marie Sklodowska who dreamed of being a scientist--and was determined to make that dream come true."--

During the Great Depression, Davey learns that a neighbor's property is about to be auctioned, and he rallies his friends, neighbors, and family to help save Strawberry Farm.

"Carter G. Woodson was born ten years after the end of the Civil War, to parents who had both been enslaved. Their stories were not the ones written about in history books, but Carter learned them and kept them in his heart. Carter's father could not read or write, but he believed in being an informed citizen. So Carter read the newspaper to him every day, and from this practice, he learned about the world and how to find out what he didn't know....