Eight-year-old Henry and nine-year-old Chin love to read about heroes in popular "penny dreadful" novels, until they both witness real courage while trying to survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Ten-year-old Isabelle joins a ballet touring company headed by her dancing idol, world-class ballerina Jackie Sanchez.

In 1885, a lonely illegitimate American boy and a lonely Chinese American boy develop an unlikely friendship in the midst of prejudices and racial tension in their coal mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.