For fifteen-year-old Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota in 1900, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opportunity. After a tragic mining accident kills their beloved uncle, the family turns away from the iron mines to pursue the dream of owning a homestead in the wilderness. This means constant hard work and new challenges for the entire family. But will it also allow Matti, the in-between child, the chance to escape from his older brother’s shadow and gain the approval of his father, which he so desperately desires?

In 1800, 13-year-old Pierre La Page never imagined he'd be leaving Montreal to paddle 2,400 miles. It was something older men, like his father, did. But when Pierre's father has an accident, Pierre quits school to become a voyageur for the North West Company, so his family can survive the winter. It's hard for Pierre as the youngest in the brigade. From the treacherous waters and cruel teasing to his aching and bloodied hands, Pierre is miserable. Still he has no choice but to endure the trip to Grand Portage and back.

For Matti Ojala and his family, Finnish immigrants in Minnesota, starting a new life in America is both a hardship and an opportunity. When their beloved Uncle Wilho is killed in a tragic mining accident, the family decides they must realize their dream of owning a homestead in the wilderness. This means constant hard work and new challenges for the entire family. But it also means that Matti, the “in-between” child, has his chance to shine. Whether he’s looking after his younger sisters, clerking in a general store, teaching English, or clearing the land with Father, Matti strives to prove himself to Father and escape his older brother’s shadow.

Thirteen-year-old Ben works at Blackwater Logging Camp as cook’s helper to his Pa. Long days of flipping pancakes and peeling potatoes with his ornery Pa make Ben long to be out in the woods with the lumberjacks. Felling logs, sawing trees, driving a team through the snowy woods . . . that’s what Ben wants to be doing. But the long cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters teaches Ben a lot about himself. Especially when an orphan boy called Nevers arrives in camp. When Nevers signs on to work with Pa, Ben makes a friend and a rival, too.

Thirteen-year-old Bella wants to be a lector just like her grandfather, who sits on a special platform in the cigar factory, reading great novels, the newspaper, and union news to workers as they roll the cigars. Being a lector is an important role in their immigrant community. But the hard times of the Depression mean that Bella must go to work in the factory; her hope of getting the education a lector needs seems impossible. Meanwhile, the factory workers and owners clash. People lose jobs, innocent workers are arrested, and the Ku Klux Klan prowls the area. And then there are those amazing new radios showing up all over town. Could the radio take the place of the lector? Bella must decide her own future and help her people preserve their history. Bella's lively, warmhearted story captures the color and flavor of Ybor City as it explores an intriguing part of our American history.

When 13-year-old Ben Ward left school to work with his Pa in a logging camp, a winter of peeling potatoes and setting tables wasn’t the adventure he had in mind. Still, come spring, he signs up for the log drive with his friend Nevers, wishing the head cook on the wanigan (the floating cook shack) could be someone other than his crabby Pa. Fate, with a wink, complies, and Pa quits—only to be replaced by someone far worse: Pete Sardman, aka Old Sard, a cantankerous character complete with a greasy apron, an eye patch, one deaf ear, and plenty to say. Luckily, there’s also the rest of the crew—a colorful, sometimes outrageous company of men. Together Ben and Nevers endure freezing weather, dangerous rapids, logjams, storms and floods, and a number of gripping tall tales, along the way learning about logging on the river and a whole lot more about life. Taking up where Blackwater Ben left off, Dead Man’s Rapids returns to the north woods of Minnesota in the late nineteenth century, and with warmth, humor, and attention to historical detail engages readers both young and old.

According to thirteen-year-old Ben Ward’s father, lumberjacks look forward to two things: mealtime and springtime. In the winter of 1898, Ben leaves school for a job as a cook’s assistant to his father at the Blackwater Logging Camp. As Ben spends long hours peeling potatoes and frying flapjacks, he dreams of working in the woods with the other men, felling trees, driving a team, and skidding timber. While enduring a long, cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters, as well as an orphan boy named Nevers, Ben comes to understand himself and his family’s past. Peppered throughout with heart and humor—and including a glossary and afterword with facts about logging—Blackwater Ben paints a vivid picture of the north woods of Minnesota at the end of the nineteenth century.