When Frankie's mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary - just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That's why she is not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other...

In 1928 Chicago, eighteen-year-old Ruby, daughter of the state attorney, uses her ability to read minds as a vigilante to hunt out murderers and kill them even if they have not yet committed the crime; Guy works in the morgue, and wants to understand the human body, because maybe then he will learn how it is that he is able to shapeshift into other people--something Ruby plans to use because someone is out to get her father and she is pretty sure...

Raised by his grandparents, first in Mississippi then in Wisconsin, ten-year-old Lymon moves to Chicago in 1945 to live with the mother he never knew, while yearning for his father.

In 1968 Chicago, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs is caught in a conflict between his father's nonviolent approach to seeking civil rights for African Americans and his older brother, who has joined the Black Panther Party.

Offered a plea deal by the FBI, William O'Neal infiltrates the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party to gather intelligence on Chairman Fred Hampton.

In the 1920s, a ten-year-old newsgirl who aspires to be a reporter at the ChicagoTribune investigates the murder of a gangster.