"In Minnesota in 1911, Nilda Carlson is torn between society life in the city of Blackduck and spending time with her family back home on the farm. Her employer, Mrs. Schoenleber, gives her more and more responsibility and experience, including recommending new opportunities for her philanthropy. Still new to America herself, Nilda focuses on the area's immigrant community, but she'll have to fight to get her ideas accepted by the locals and donors...

Other students laugh when Rigoberto, an immigrant from Venezuela, introduces himself but later, he meets Angelina and discovers that he is not the only one who feels like an outsider.

"A young Amish woman fends off the matchmaking efforts of her fellow passengers on the Charming Nancy--the ship that brought the first wave of Amish to America in 1737"--

When her successful fashion designer mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, seventeen-year-old Serene must take over her mother's business while also trying to find her father with the help of a new boy in town in whom she finds refuge and love.

In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.