Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

In the final days of the Viýýet Nam War, Hýýang takes her little brother, Linh, to the airport, determined to find a way to safety in America. When Linh is ripped from her arms, Hýýang is left behind in the war-torn country. Six years later, Hýýang is now in Texas as a refugee. She doesn't know how she will find her little brother until she meets LeeRoy, a city boy with big rodeo dreams, who decides to help her. Reunited with Linh, she realizes he doesn't remember her, their family, or Viýýet Nam. Her heart is crushed, but she will do anything to bridge the gap.

In 1939 six-year-old Henry, who is deaf, is taken from his family and placed in a home for the feeble-minded where, years later, his friends include a conscientious objector serving there during World War II.

Ophelia Harrison used to live in a small house in the Georgia countryside. But that was before the night in November 1922, and the cruel act that took her home and her father from her. Which was the same night that Ophie learned she can see ghosts. Now Ophie and her mother are living in Pittsburgh with relatives they barely know. In the hopes of earning enough money to get their own place, Mama has gotten Ophie a job as a maid in the same old manor house where she works. Daffodil Manor, like the wealthy Caruthers family who owns it, is haunted by memories and prejudices of the past--and, as Ophie discovers, ghosts as well. Ghosts who have their own loves and hatreds and desires, ghosts who have wronged others and ghosts who have themselves been wronged. And as Ophie forms a friendship with one spirit whose life ended suddenly and unjustly, she wonders if she might be able to help--even as she comes to realize that Daffodil Manor may hold more secrets than she bargained for.