Fifteen-year-old Josh has chosen to side neither with his twin sister Sophie nor with the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel, but rather to fight alongside Dr. John Dee and the mysterious Virginia Dare, while the immortal Machiavelli and Billy the Kid follow the Elders' plans to set loose the monsters of Alcatraz on San Francisco and trigger the end of the humani race.

In 1970s San Francisco, Julie and her best friend Ivy learn about Chinese immigration in the early twentieth century when they investigate a mysterious doll theft.

In 1974 at her new San Francisco school, nine-year-old Julie does not want to tell her class about her parents' divorce, or to tell her sister about messing up her school assignment, but when she breaks her finger playing basketball and her whole family rallies around her, she realizes the importance of telling the truth.

It's 1976 and the entire country is celebrating America's 200th birthday. Julie joins her cousins on a pioneer-style wagon train in honor of the Bicentennial. The journey is filled with adventures, challenges, and self-discovery as Julie faces her fears to make an important contribution to her country's birthday. The "Looking Back" section provides additional information about Bicentennial celebrations in the United States.--From publisher's description....

Julie is in school detention for passing a note to Joy, a deaf student who has trouble understanding what their teacher is saying. Indignant, Julie decides to run for student body president so she can make changes to the detention system. But the other students are put off by Joy, her choice for vice president, and Julie worries that she'll have little chance of winning if she partners with someone who seems so different. With persistence and creative...

It is 1906, and when her family is cheated out of their tavern, fourteen-year-old Minnie Bonner is forced to become a maid to the Sump family, who are moving to San Francisco--three weeks before the great earthquake.

Having left her parents' Missouri farm for good and trained to become a telegraph operator in Kansas City, teenage Rose moves out to San Francisco and joins the thousands of "bachelor girls" supporting themselves.

The first Christmas since Julie's parents' divorce is difficult for the whole family, but Julie finds comfort sharing the Chinese New Year traditions of her best friend, Ivy Ling, and thinking about new beginnings.

Callie struggles to come to terms with the disappearance of her father, but eventually chooses to believe that he has traveled back to the San Fransisco earthquake of 1906.

Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.