Nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin eagerly helps her cousin Ana, newly arrived from Russia, to adjust to life in New York City, but when their teacher says the two must sing together at a school assembly, Rebecca worries that her big moment will be ruined.

While celebrating her brother's Bar Mitzvah on Coney Island, nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin disobeys by going off on her own, leaving her cousin Ana, a recent immigrant, alone.

In these six stories from the uplifting American Girl series, a young girl living in 1914 New York learns what it's like to grow up in the big city. Rebecca Rubin has big dreams of becoming an actress, but her parents don't think girls are cut out for performing. As Rebecca searches for alternatives, she finds new ways to fulfill dreams that she never thought possible.

Rebecca Rubin worries that her tenth birthday will be ruined because it falls during Passover, but her mother's cousin Max, an actor, takes her with him to a movie studio, where she makes friends with an actress and a set carpenter.