When her father's business closes because of the Great Depression forcing Kit to make changes in her life, the nine-year-old responds with resourcefulness.

Ruthie Smithens, a girl who loves fairy tales and happy endings, doesn't mind being "goofy Ruthie" if it makes her best friend Kit Kittredge, smile and forget about the hardships of the Depression. But when Ruthie finds out that the Kittredges are going to be evicted from their house, she makes up her mind to help. Ruthie knows that to bring about a happy ending, she'll have to be as smart and brave and determined as she can really, truly be.

Against all odds, a veterinary student and a beautiful circus performer from a bygone era meet and fall in love through their shared compassion for a special elephant. But their secret romance incurs the wrath of her dangerously volatile husband.

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.

A young man has a lifelong love of rock collecting that eventually leads him to work at a science museum.

From the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and Twain's End comes a novel set during the Great Depression following two estranged sisters and their mother--who has spent a lifetime hiding a desperate secret that could dismantle the entire family.

In a Depression-era America that is woven with magic, zombies, and flying carpets, a down-and-out man escapes a local thug by joining a barnstorming minor league baseball team.

"Beatrice Carraway has dreams. Although she's aged out of the childhood pageant circuit, she's intent on carrying her talents all the way to the big screen--if only she can escape the poverty of West Dallas first. But as the Great Depression drags the working class further and further under, Beatrice struggles just to keep herself, her mother, and her younger sister afloat. After a string of failed auditions, she feels defeated.And then in walks Jack...

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.

Catapulted into early adulthood after the death of an older brother he idolized, eight-year-old Matthew Kerney assumes difficult responsibilities to save the family ranch against a backdrop of the Great Depression and a drought-stricken Tularosa Basin.