Susan McAliley

Information about the foods, cooking, kitchens, and dining customs of the people who lived in northern New Mexico in 1824 and whose culture combined Spanish, Mexican, and Native American traditions.

When Julie and Ivy visit a wildlife rescue center after finding a baby owl in Golden Gate Park, they learn about two eagles who need help before they can be released back into the wild.

The first Christmas since Julie's parents' divorce is difficult for the whole family, but Julie finds comfort sharing the Chinese New Year traditions of her best friend, Ivy Ling, and thinking about new beginnings.

Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tia Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.

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.

When the entire family goes into the hills to collect pinon nuts, Josefina hopes to find the most in order to make Tia Dolores proud of her.

While Rebecca Rubin helps her building's ailing superintendent take care of his homing pigeons, she puzzles over what to do with the Christmas centerpiece her teacher insisted she make but which has no place in her Jewish home.

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.

In 1974 at her new San Francisco school, nine-year-old Julie does not want to tell her class about her parents' divorce, or to tell her sister about messing up her school assignment, but when she breaks her finger, she realizes the importance of telling the truth.