James Edmond, a sixteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his experiences and those of "G" Company which he joined as a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Twelve-year-old Ben Uchida keeps a journal of his experiences as a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp in Mirror Lake, California, during World War II.

A seventeen-year-old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France.

A fictional journal kept by twelve-year-old Augustus Pelletier, the youngest member of Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery.

In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.

In 1863, as the Civil War approaches her quiet town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, nine-year-old Virginia records in a journal the horrible things she witnesses before, during, and after the Battle of Gettysburg.

In her diary, a young girl writes about her life and the events surrounding the beginning of the American Revolution in Philadelphia in 1776.

Teenager Biddy Owens' 1948 journal about working for the Birmingham Black Barons includes the games and the players, racism the team faces from New Orleans to Chicago, and his family's resistance to his becoming a professional baseball player. Includes a historical note about the evolution of the Negro Leagues.

Jesse Smoke, a sixteen-year-old Cherokee, begins a journal in 1837 to record stories of his people and their difficulties as they face removal along the Trail of Tears. Includes a historical note giving details of the removal.

In 1848, nine-year-old Joshua Martin McCullough writes a journal of his family's journey from Missouri to Oregon in a covered wagon. Includes a historical note about westward migration.