During a school trip to Ellis Island, Dominick Avaro, a ten-year-old foster child, travels back in time to 1908 Italy and accompanies two young emigrants to America.

After his family moves to a different part of town, Matthew tries to get back to his old house by trying on different pairs of wings in an unusual wing shop.

In late seventeenth-century England, eleven-year-old Digory, forced to leave his hometown after his father is lost at sea, becomes an apprentice to the architect Henry Winstanley, who built a lighthouse on the treacherous Eddystone Reef -- the very rocks that sank Digory's grandfather's ship years before.

In the early 1900s, two cousins leave their Russian shtetl with the rest of their family to come to America, hopeful that they will all pass the dreaded inspection at Ellis Island.

The O'Mally sisters' bubble bath has some scary moments when they realize their bubbles contain chickens, frogs, and a mean, hungry alligator.