Henry Carter Hull

Sisters Maple and Willow miss each other when Maple starts school, leaving Willow behind at home.

Suzy spends her year in first grade waiting for her father, who is serving in Vietnam, and when the postcards stop coming she worries that he will never make it home.

When Saya's mother is sent to jail as an illegal immigrant, she sends her daughter a cassette tape with a song and a bedtime story, which inspires Saya to write a story of her own--one that just might bring her mother home.