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.

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.

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 his 1845 diary, thirteen-year-old orphan Jedediah describes his wagon train journey to Oregon, in which he confronts rivers and sandy plains, bears and rattlesnakes, and the challenges of living with his fellow travelers. Includes historical notes.

"Soon we will eat the frozen cattle.... And then, when that is gone, what shall we eat? Shall we eat the snow? Shall we eat the ice? Shall we eat the bark on the frozen trees? What shall we eat?" Spring, 1846: Douglas Allen Deeds dreams of starting a new life out West. When the opportunity to join the Donner Party Expedition arises, he leaves the life he's known behind to set out on the nearly 2,000-mile trek from Independence, Missouri to sunny...