Diane L Wilson

Twelve-year-old Colton, son of a black mother and a white father, takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train, and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South.

Spirited fifteen-year-old horse lover Rachel Selby is determined to become a veterinarian, despite the opposition of her rigid father, her proper mother, and the norms of Boston in 1872, while that city faces a serial arsonist and an epidemic spreading through its firehorse population.

An Irish boy and a Chinese boy become friends, despite their mistrust and prejudices, while working on the Transcontinental Railroad in 1866.