When Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Ann, lose their jobs to the gasoline, electric, and diesel motor shovels, they go to a little country town where they find that one new job leads to another.

Fourth grader Robert Morris Reynolds, who cannot say his n me properly because he has trouble pronouncing his Rs, works hard with a speech therapist to overcome his problem.

Lured by the glamour and excitement of a soldier's life, eleven-year-old Nathaniel follows the British army down the Hudson Valley during the American Revolution and witnesses the true hardships of war firsthand. Maps on endsheets.