The Toronto Dressmakers’ Strike of 1931 brings young sisters Sophie and Rose together in their fight for better working conditions, decent wages, and for their union. It’s a tough battle as distrust and resentment of immigrants is growing, with many people blaming their poverty and difficulties on these workers. Sophie and Rose are faced with unexpected — and sometimes violent — barriers, and they quickly find that a strike is more than just a march. Barely into the strike, Rose is imprisoned after a fight in a picket line, leaving fourteen-year-old Sophie to take care of their ailing mother at night and spend her days protesting in the freezing wind. Rose’s isolation in prison weakens her resolve for change. Will they be able to continue the fight for what they once so strongly believed in? In the midst of anti-Semitism and the Great Depression, Sophie, Rose, and their union come together to try to make a lasting change.

In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain signed the Edict of Expulsion, giving all Jews three months to leave the country. In the aftermath, twelve-year-old Joseph escapes to Lisbon, Portugal with his parents and younger sister, Gracia. After only eight months of safety, Joseph and Gracia, along with hundreds of other Jewish children, are kidnapped from the port in Lisbon and put on a ship. They then make a dangerous journey to the island of São Tomé, off the coast of West Africa. Now slaves, they are forced to work on a sugarcane plantation. Joseph must work in the fields, his life repeatedly saved by a combination of luck, strength, and quick wits. While Gracia tries to accept their circumstances, Joseph holds on to the hope that, one day, they will be free.

Thirteen-year-old Jacob's life is hard in 1920s Poland, where he lives in an orphanage for Jewish children. One pleasure he has is learning to play the mandolin. Then an American benefactor promises the orphans a new life in Canada and the dream of playing a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. But will he keep his promises? The children embark on the long journey by train and by ship, where a stow-away becomes dangerously ill. Jacob, the orchestra's star mandolin player, must overcome his fears and doubts to help his friends face the challenges of the voyage to a new life.