When three children, Jesse, Jason, and Emma, are confronted with new classmates from different ethnic backgrounds, they strive to overcome their initial reactions, and to understand, accept, and welcome Maria, Jin, and Fatima.

After a family hike in a nearby park, Sadiq forms the Explorers Club with his friends, who then help a neighbor create a nature-themed scavenger hunt for the Fourth of July celebration.

As Ramadan nears, Sadiq and his friends form the Money Makers Club to plan a community fundraiser, an iftar, but when Zaza stops participating, Sadiq gets upset with him.

Sadiq and his friends are starting a video game club at school and planning a tournament for the whole school to participate in, but their teacher reminds them that they also have to have a service pledge, and they are not really sure how video games fit in with the goal of helping others--until a visit to an assisted living home where his mother volunteers gives him an idea.

When Sadiq and his classmates host a festival celebrating their own cultures, they find a way to make sure everyone in their class has traditions to share.

Sadiq cannot wait to show his family heirloom drum, called a durbaan, to his friends at school, especially Gabi, who is deaf, but when a mishap occurs with Hooyo's durbaan, Sadiq must explain it to her and make things right.

His school is starting a newspaper club, and Sadiq wants to be a reporter--but he is troubled because the editor-in-chief, Katy, seems more intent on embarrassing people with gossip than in reporting actual news stories.

Eighth-grader Somali American Nimo Mohamed is the youngest runner on the varsity cross-country team, but she is determined to keep up with the older girls, so she has set herself a grueling training schedule; too grueling because her body is exhausted, her grades at school are slipping, and her father, who is still very much in her life despite the divorce, is starting the pressure her to quit the team.

"Eleven-year-old Jacques, who must contend with difficult family dynamics and pressure from an older boy to help him commit a crime, is surprised to discover that he has much in common with Kiki, one of the many new Somali refugees who have immigrated to his Maine town"--