Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby, living in a small Massachusetts town just after World War II, finds himself facing many new challenges as he tries to pull together his coachless basketball team, cope with new feelings for his old friend Joanie, and discover the identity of the mysterious stranger who seems to be threatening his teacher.

In an alternate Victorian England, fourteen-year-old orphan Henry Grim, a maltreated servant at an exclusive school for the "sons of Gentry and Quality, " begins a new life when he unexpectedly becomes the first commoner to be accepted at Knightley Academy, a prestigious boarding school for knights.

Presents the biography of Shirley Chisholm against the backdrop of her political, historical, and cultural environment.