Jack’s plans for a vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents. But plenty of excitement is coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a feisty old neighbor with a most unusual chore --- typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town.

Sasha Zaichik has known about the Soviet Young Pioneers, a communist group, since he was six. But now that it is finally time to join up, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway.  And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night.

For all the 10 years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by...and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But when the Vietnam War reaches her home, she must journey with her family from one country to another, from one life to the next.