In 1952, when Georgie is eleven years old, her family moves to a new Indiana neighborhood where her teenaged neighbor has polio and is in an iron lung.

In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.

When Rebecca attends summer camp in the country because of the spreading polio epidemic in New York City, she is troubled by a bully in her tent and another fellow camper who is strangely secretive.

Miranda finds it difficult to rehearse for the dance recital after she learns that her mother's poliomyelitis kept her from dancing when she was a child.

Caring for a runt lamb helps Pixie gain empathy when, in the 1940s, her family moves to her grandparents' farm and her sister Charlotte contracts polio and is sent away.

Fish has a knack for inventing. His annoying neighbor, Olympia, has a knack for messing things up. But when his latest invention leads Fish to Liberty, a beautiful stray dog who needs a home, he and Olympia work together to rescue her.